InterContinental Hotels Launches New Midscale Brand

One of the three largest hotel companies in the world unveiled a new midscale brand and began licensing Monday. 

InterContinental Hotels Group launched Avid Hotels, targeting travelers at a slightly lower price point than its popular Holiday Inn Express brand, a demographic it calls vastly underserved.

IHG plans to begin construction on the first Avid Hotel in early 2018 with the first openings expected about a year later. The brand's prototype design includes a minimum of three stories with 95 to 100 rooms on a 1.5-acre lot. Guests are expected to pay $10 to $15 less than they would at Holiday Inn Express. 

The brand's logo aims to be modern with lowercase letters, red and aqua colors and a checkmark as the letter '"v." The hotel's lobbies will have airy entryways, canopies and red staircases designed as an eye-catching feature.

The guest rooms will have work areas, storage space and televisions that allow guests to stream shows directly from their devices. WiFi will be available throughout the hotel. Avid Hotels guests can use IHG's rewards club. 

Hotel owners who wish to create Avid Hotels franchises would pay a 5% royalty fee, but IHG is offering discounts to the first 100 owners who sign agreements. IHG said more than 150 owners have already expressed interest.  

"Our extensive consumer research and conversations with owners identified a clear opportunity to reach an important set of business and leisure travelers in a vastly underserved $20B segment of the U.S. midscale market," IHG Americas CEO Elie Maalouf said in a release.   

In addition to Holiday Inn, IHG's existing brands include InterContinental Hotels & Resorts, Kimpton Hotels & Resorts and Hotel Indigo. The company franchises, leases or owns more than 5,200 hotels in nearly 100 countries, with another 1,500 properties in its development pipeline. 

IHG Americas Chief Development Officer Joel Eisemann will speak Tuesday at the Sixth Annual Bisnow Lodging Investment Summit in D.C.