Dive Brief:
- Some 70% of Crowne Plaza Hotels & Resorts’ Americas properties will be revamped by the end of 2025 to showcase an updated design, parent company IHG Hotels & Resorts announced Tuesday.
- The design, dubbed the New Modern, establishes defined zones for “productivity, restoration and collaboration” among its public and guest spaces, according to IHG. Communal spaces will also feature groupings of designated public and private areas for work and leisure.
- The updated design is intended to better serve the “new blended traveler” as “the once firm lines between business and leisure travel blur further,” Ginger Taggart, vice president of brand management for global premium brands at IHG, said in a statement.
Dive Insight:
According to IHG, the Crowne Plaza brand stands “at the intersection of professional and leisure travel.”
“Our latest design approach introduces more inviting gathering spaces that inspire connection and enable guests to balance business and social interaction,” Taggart added.
Private and public spaces within the hotels’ communal areas have been redesigned to foster both individual focus or collaborative engagement, “fueled by inviting food and beverage options,” according to IHG.
Meanwhile, refreshed guest rooms will include furniture and amenities “thoughtfully arranged” to create a smoother transition between work and relaxation, per the announcement.
A handful of U.S. hotels already sport the New Modern design. Crowne Plaza Virginia Beach Town Center in Virginia Beach, Virginia, for example, added a new Flagship Restaurant & Lounge as part of its revamp. And public areas within the redesigned 588-room Crown Plaza Louisville Airport Expo Center in Louisville, Kentucky, now include a full-service restaurant, lobby bar and grab-and-go market.
There are more than 400 Crowne Plaza hotels operating worldwide, according to IHG. The company’s accelerated growth plan for the brand includes the addition of more than 36,000 rooms across nearly 150 hotels in the coming years — an expansion of its system size by more than 35%.
Planned openings include a 22-story Crowne Plaza hotel in New York City’s Times Square, slated to open this spring.
In IHG’s most recent earnings call, CFO Michael Glover said business transient travel in the Americas’ region was up 3% in the third quarter of 2024, and leisure was “only slightly lower.”
