Holiday Inn Express
Holiday Inn Express (currently known as Express by Holiday Inn outside North America) is a mid-priced hotel chain within the Intercontinental Hotels Group family of brands. As an "express" hotel, their focus is on offering limited services and a reasonable price. Standard amenities lean toward the convenient and practical which cater to business travelers and short-term stays. There are over 1,500 Holiday Inn Express hotels worldwide.
Properties
Typical Holiday Inn Express hotels are built from corporate architectural prototypes, and tend to consist of 60-80 rooms, with a mix of suites. The rooms are generally large and spacious, compared to rooms that are "European style" and come with standard toiletries. Because the chain has been undergoing tremendous growth, the majority of Holiday Inn Express hotels are brand new or newly renovated.
Food and Beverage
On-site restaurants and lounges are not present in most U.S. properties, while many other inns worldwide offer small venue food & beverage offerings.
Holiday Inn Express properties do offer the company's signature "Express Start" breakfast bar. The buffet generally consists of common breakfast offerings, including cereal, a hot meat product, a hot egg product, biscuits and gravy, bagels and muffins, and the brand's exclusive cinnamon roll. Beverages consist of milk and juice, along with the signature "Smart Roast" coffee.
Recreation
Most hotels offer a fitness center with various equipment such as treadmills, indoor swimming pools and a hot tub.
Business Services
Most Holiday Inn Express hotels offer a business center with equipment such as computers, printers, and fax equipment for use by business travelers. Additionally, all Holiday Inn Express hotels offer free local calls and free wireless internet for business travelers who bring their laptop computer.
Marketing
In the mid-2000s, Holiday Inn Express began producing humorous television commercials featuring "average Joes" performing extraordinary activities that only experts would know. The concept attributes these exaggerated abilities to the fact that they "stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night". The campaign reflects the brand's slogan "Stay Smart" which is still in use today.
In the summer of 2007, IHG took the "Stay Smart" theme even further. The hotel chain teamed up with AOL and HBO's new comedy site, "This Just In", to develop a two-month daily web series called "The Smart Show". The premise of the show was a virtual tour with the two hosts on a coast-to-coast road trip exploring what's so smart about America. The idea was to showcase the diverse and non-traditional culture of "smart", such as people, places, businesses and inventions that are clever, witty, and unexpected as opposed to simply "book smart". Beginning in Boston, Massachusetts, the traveling show stopped along major metropolitan cities as well as small, back road towns on the way to Los Angeles, California, where the program ended in December 2007. Website visitors were able to interact with the hosts, submit their own video content about smart ideas in their home towns and respond to other smart postings.
Holiday Inn Express has also reinforced their "Stay Smart" slogan online by opening an Internet "Smart Mart" on their website allowing customers to buy shower heads, towels, toiletries, and cinnamon rolls identical to those featured at the hotels. The online store also features clothing product featuring the hotel logo and breakfast offerings.