InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) has announced the opening of its 1000th relaunched Holiday Inn hotel at Times Square in New York City.

The $1 billion relaunch of Holiday Inn is the largest in the history of the hospitality industry, with over 3,200 hotels being updated – improving quality and driving consistency at Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express hotels from Boston to Beijing.

In addition to the 3,200 open hotels there are a further 1,050 in the development pipeline, due to open with the relaunched branding in the next three to four years.

The relaunch programme, combined with new openings and continued removal of lower quality hotels, will completely rejuvenate the Holiday Inn estate over the next few years.

The Holiday Inn Express New York City Times Square is located at 343 West 39th Street between 8th and 9th Avenues in Midtown Manhattan, said a top official.

Andy Cosslett, IHG’s CEO said “The opening of our 1000th relaunched Holiday Inn hotel is the latest milestone on our three year journey and demonstrates the momentum behind the programme.'

'Despite the tough economic climate, we’ve relaunched, on average, four hotels a day for the past 6 months and we’re committed to completing the global relaunch by the end of 2010.'

Relaunched hotels are benefitting from improved guest satisfaction and RevPAR (revenue per available room) outperformance of over five per cent.  And the feedback we’re getting from our guests and hotel owners tell us it’s the right time to be doing this.

The economic environment has changed since we started the programme, but this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to show people that the Holiday Inn they came to know and love over the last 50 years ago is still a hotel that’s right for them today,” Cosslet added.-TradeArabia News Service