Chain of the month: IHG

The InterContinental Phoenicia Beirut was IHG's first MENA property. In September the hotel celebrated its 50th birthday with a weekend of food, fun a

First for technology
While aggressive expansion and being the first to enter new and emerging markets have been priorities for IHG, it has also strived to become a trailblazer in other areas of the hotel business, perhaps most poignantly in technology.

In 1965, Holiday Inn pioneered the world’s first computerised hotel reservation system Holidex, which two years later became the first such system to link directly with airline and travel agents’ reservation systems. Thirty years on in 1995, Holiday Inn became the first hotel brand to take a booking over the internet.

Today, it continues to embrace new and emerging technological platforms, including social media and tablet apps.

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“Social media works on multiple levels; we’ve used it to drive awareness of our brand and to get people booking through our websites,” says Sheppard. “We’ve also had a lot of focus on mobile technology, particularly in the Middle East where there’s a burgeoning new population and the average mobile ownership is close to two handsets per person.

“We’ve developed mobile apps for each of our brands, which put us in the hands of people making it easy for them to make a reservation.”

However, there is a tendency in this region for people to browse online and book offline, according to Sheppard. But while the actual bookings through mobile devices in this region are at a lower level than elsewhere, the figure is growing rapidly and the group expects that trend to continue.

IHG is also one of the first global hotel chains to introduce iPad technology into its day-to-day staff operations, says Sheppard.

“We’ve evolved over the past six years from the traditional approach of a guest talking to a concierge to find out more about the location they’re staying in.

“Now, five days before the guest gets to the hotel they’ll get an email from the concierge with suggestions of activities to do while staying with us. Several of our advice tools are now applications guests can download for their iPad so it’s interesting to see how technology is helping us deliver the guest experience in a new way.

“Technology becomes an extended way of bringing to life what is on offer. There has been a tremendous focus on educating concierges and we encourage them and colleagues to go out and explore, and continue to find new points of interest.”

First for customer loyalty
While technology has opened up booking and communication channels to guests, IHG’s comprehensive loyalty schemes have kept them returning again and again.

Guest loyalty goes back a long way for the hotel group, having launched the industry’s first frequent guest programme ‘Priority Club Rewards’ in 1983, which today is the hotel industry’s largest loyalty programme with nearly 60 million members globally.

Pascal Gauvin, vice president of operations for the Near East and Africa at IHG, predicts as many as half of all guests in MENA come through guest-loyalty programmes.

“The guests love to be part of our loyalty systems. They don’t just want to stay in a hotel because of a commodity, they appreciate the brand and they give a lot of constructive feedback. Customers are savvy, they understand a country classification system is not a worldwide system, but they know companies like IHG are global. It’s the brand that makes a difference, people are buying a brand.”

Gauvin recalls a conversation with a guest last month: “I was in Egypt and met an IHG customer, a British expatriate who had been working around the world. When he discovered I was an IHG employee he showed me his Ambassadors card and told me about all the hotels he stays in with amazing savvy; which IHG brand he prefers in Dubai, in Cairo, in Europe and so on.”

It is critical to keep loyal customers, Gauvin says, particularly in challenging times: “These loyal guests travel more than anyone else and are the ones who will continue travelling, even during times of unrest.”

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