IHG Hotels & Resorts CEO Unveils Strategy for Upcoming Midscale Brand Launch

IHG Hotels & Resorts announced during a second-quarter earnings call that the company plans to launch a new midscale conversion brand.

During the meeting, IHG Chief Executive Officer Elie Maalouf said that the hospitality giant would be unveiling a “new brand targeted at midscale conversion opportunities,” with potential for “considerable scale.”

While Maalouf touted the success of the Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express brands in the upper midscale sector, he believes the new brand will not “overlap much” with IHG’s current hotel portfolio.

The CEO also described the new midscale conversion brand as “really different,” and said it would expand to “more than 500 hotels over the next 10 years, and more than 1,000 hotels over the next 20 years” in the United States.

“Our aim is that this new conversion brand will become the first choice for guests and owners in the midscale segment, accelerating our growth in a space that is already worth $14 billion in the U.S. market alone,” Maalouf said.

“We just heard from guests that they want a more trusted brand—an IHG brand—in the space, and we heard from owners that they would like to be part of the IHG space,” Maalouf continued. “That’s why we’re targeting the space.”

Officials also revealed that the hotel and resorts company saw systemwide revenue per available room reach $89.88 in the second quarter, a 17-percent increase from 2022 and a 9.9 percent increase from 2019.

The average daily rate climbed 5.4 percent to $128.48 in the second quarter, while occupancy reached 70 percent, a seven-percent increase year-over-year, but still down 1.5 percent from pre-pandemic totals.

In June, IHG announced it would launch AirPlay in hotel rooms in collaboration with Apple, allowing travelers to securely share content from their iPhone or iPad to their guest room TV. AirPlay will begin to roll out in select IHG hotels globally before the end of 2023.