Despite Australia largely being closed to international tourists for almost two years, IHG Hotels & Resorts has not rested there, with its portfolio blooming in both the country’s state capital and regional hubs.
Its concentration has been on midscale and luxury brands, and many of its new assets in the market have been and will be in partnership with developer Pro-invest Group.
In 2018, IHG had 47 hotels operating under the InterContinental, Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express brands in the Australasia region with a further 19 hotels in the pipeline.
Today, it has in the market 62 hotels across eight brands, along with approximately 36 hotels in some form of development.
The picture is changing rapidly, said Leanne Harwood, the firm’s senior vice president and managing director for Japan, Australasia and Pacific.
“Hotel deals are being signed every month, and I don’t see that slowing at all. 2022 is going to be our biggest year of openings,” she said.
One notable opening is the global debut of IHG’s luxury soft brand, Vignette Collection.
In December, the British firm opened Hotel X in December in Fortitude Valley, a suburb of Queensland capital’s Brisbane, to target business travelers and events.
It’s general manager, Daniel Moran, said the hotel is the “most exciting hotel I’ve ever been part of.”
Vignette chose Australia first, with its other announced properties being in Austria, Portugal and Thailand.
“The 17th brand in our IHG stable is focused clearly on the luxury and lifestyle segment,” said Abhijay Sandilya, recently promoted to managing director, Japan, from vice president of development for the region that includes Australia.
Voco is another brand growing thanks to mindful travelers looking carefully at their carbon footprints, said Sandilya, who oversaw many of this brand’s signings in Australia.
“Future responsible travel is a very core fundamental we’re seeing with travelers wanting to travel with a purpose,” he added.
Bouncing Brisbane
Queensland also was chosen for the 2018 debut of Voco, with the hotel Voco Gold Coast, Sandilya said.
“We jokingly call [Voco] an Australian brand because, like Vignette, it was born in Queensland,” he said, adding that the Voco brand has been IHG’s “fastest ever global expansion.”
In December, the Voco Brisbane City Centre opened. It was the 50th Voco to have been signed globally, and it will be joined soon by another IHG-branded hotel, the Hotel Indigo Brisbane City Centre.
Executives at IHG and Pro-invest said they are keen to build Brisbane’s presence ahead of the 2032 Summer Olympics, which is being held in the city.
Before the pandemic, international tourism to the city doubled within a decade, while domestic stays jumped by more than 70%.
“We see [Vignette Collection] going from strength to strength in this market,” Sandilya added.
IHG’s also recently promoted managing director, Australasia and Pacific, Matthew Tripolone said Vignette “will enable [IHG] to unlock opportunity.”
“We're going to focus on key city locations where we don’t have a huge representation, but we also see big opportunities, particularly for the Holiday Inn brand, in large regional cities,” he said.
Great strides have been made even through the pandemic to bring Holiday Inn to fast-growing secondary and satellite cities, he added.
“Significant signings include [hotels in] Geelong and Werribee,” he said, referring to such destinations in the state of Victoria, the capital of which is Melbourne.
Also in the state is the Holiday Inn Dandenong, a former Ramada Encore by Wyndham that open in April and be IHG’s fifth partnership with owner Pelligra Group.
Holiday Inn’s regional success pivots on Australia’s geography, Tripolone said.
“In any market where there’s a significant drive market, like Australia, you need midscale, accessible accommodation of a higher quality where the guests know what they’re going to get,” he said, adding that another destination of interest is Wagga Wagga in the state of New South Wales.
Another luxury push is the eponymous InterContinental brand, with 200-room new-build InterContinental Parramatta set to open in 2025 in a satellite city 15 miles west of Sydney that Sandilya called “a super city of the future.”
The biggest challenge in continuing IHG’s “growth journey” in Australia, Harwood said, is staff.
That is a concern the group said it is tackling with a move to be “one of Australia’s most flexible employers, with Harwood saying the market needs to fill approximately 3,600 roles.
One initiative is to permit staff to choose shifts after first committing to a minimum number of hours.
Lynda Ugarte, head of human relations, Japan, Australasia and Pacific, said that would allow staff to “work how, when and where [they liked].”
Additional IHG Australia Development
New South Wales — 172-room Kimpton Margot Sydney, Australia’s debut for the brand, due to open in February in partnership with Pro-invest;
South Australia — 367-room Intercontinental Adelaide is to undergo a $32-million refurbishment by 2023;
Victoria — 312-room new-build Holiday Inn Express Melbourne Little Collins opened in December, while in 2024 it will be joined by the Holiday Inn and Suites Ballarat Goldfields;
Western Australia — October saw the re-branding of the independent Sage Hotel West Perth as the 101-key Holiday Inn West Perth.