Holiday Inn Hotel, New York JFK Airport

Some writers have commended the Holiday Inn for its excellent service at very reasonable prices. A look behind the scenes of the brand policy, products and pricing shows however a very different picture. Holiday Inn is in fact often more expensive than the competition and provides a low degree of service for the price.

The problem with the perception of HI is that most people only know their lowprice HI Express chain and have little ...
...separately.

The Holiday Inn Group consists of four brands of Hotels:

~ the classic Holiday Inn Hotels, 4-5 Stars
~ the upmarket Holiday Inn Crown Plaza Hotels, 5 Stars
~ the lowprice Holiday Inn Express Hotels, 2-3 Stars
~ the Holiday Inn Resorts, upmarket holiday resorts

The HI Group is itself part of a larger Group, Bass Hotels, which also includes the brands Inter-Continental and ... more

Some writers have commended the Holiday Inn for its excellent service at very reasonable prices. A look behind the scenes of the brand policy, products and pricing shows however a very different picture. Holiday Inn is in fact often more expensive than the competition and provides a low degree of service for the price.

The problem with the perception of HI is that most people only know their lowprice HI Express chain and have little to say about HI's other brands and products. All five opinions posted on HI before mine only discuss the merits of HI Express, but that's just one of four HI brands. That's also Ciao's mistake, they should have created a category for each brand/chain separately.

The Holiday Inn Group consists of four brands of Hotels:

~ the classic Holiday Inn Hotels, 4-5 Stars
~ the upmarket Holiday Inn Crown Plaza Hotels, 5 Stars
~ the lowprice Holiday Inn Express Hotels, 2-3 Stars
~ the Holiday Inn Resorts, upmarket holiday resorts

The HI Group is itself part of a larger Group, Bass Hotels, which also includes the brands Inter-Continental and Forum Hotels.

I have myself stayed at five of the HI Group's hotels, and have spend a total of around 25 nights there:

~ Holiday Inn Hotel, New York JFK Airport
~ Holiday Inn Hotel, Warsaw
~ Holiday Inn Hotel, Paris CDG Airport
~ Holiday Inn Hotel, Istanbul
~ Holiday Inn Crown Plaza, Istanbul

In order to stay within the right category, I will only discuss my experiences with the classic Holiday Inn Hotels - and there the picture is very doom.

At first sight, HIs often appear to be the cheapest international business hotels in the city, boasting themselves with five big stars. There is a double flaw to this advertising:

1. Pricing

Holiday Inn is clever to show very low rack rates, i.e. the rates which you pay at the fornt desk if you haven't made a (discounted) reservation through your agency or company. This rack rate is indeed the lowest of all comparable hotels. BUT: Nobody pays the rack rate!

Almost everybody gets discounts through an agency, often 40% below the rack rate with some chains. But with HI, the rack rate is the bottom, you can get 10% discount at maximum. When comparing the discounted rates, HI is anything but the the cheapest 4 or 5 Star hotel around, you can often get Interconti or even Sheraton for a much lower price (with much better facilities and service).

2. The 4 or 5 Star illusion

Holiday Inn Hotels are 4 or 5 stars. But be aware that five stars in Poland is nothing like five stars in Britain. It is much easier to receive five stars in Poland or Turkey than in Western Europe. And there lies a big problem:

Whereas other chains seek to maintain common high standards around the world, HI seems to fulfill only the minimal requirements needed for five stars in the respective country - and where even that would come too expensive, they opt for the cheaper 4 Star version. That's why HIs in Western Europe, North America and Southeast Asia usually come at 4 Stars, whereas the sell the same product at 5 Stars in other countries.

So let's have a close look at Holiday Inn Hotels' product and service:

~ Rooms

The rooms are usually rather small at around 15sqm/150sqft, compared to other upmarket hotels. You will find the usual facilities: Sat TV, Phone, etc. All rooms are ensuite, the bathrooms coming with combined shower/bath. Again, the bathrooms are extremely small, but kept clean and proper.

Like many of the hotels themselves, the rooms are often very old and haven't been renovated in decades. Whereas other chains will completely overhaul their rooms at least every five years, Holiday Inns seems to rather keep that money for themselves.

The result is that HI rooms are a place to sleep and nothing more. Competitors put a lot of effort into creating a nice atmosphere with expensive woods, nice window blinds and paintings on the wall, with HI you can be lucky if the wallpaper doesn't come off. Also none of the open workspaces and cosy sofas here, all you get is one oldfashioned armchair and a mini desk. That's all fine for a cheap inn, but not for an expensive upmarket business hotel.

~ Facilities

Well they do have a pool, because that's required for the stars, but none of anemities like Sauna, Gym or Massage known from Interconti and the likes.

~ Dining & Room Service

Even in the best hotels, the restaurants are usually not the strongest point. But at HI it comes even worse. Their selection of meals doesn't go much further than pasta, burgers and sandwiches, served at the usual (ridiculous) hotel prices. It's also quite a shame for a four star hotel in Paris not to be able to deliver a freshly squezed orange juice. The bars are oldfashioned, simple and expensive and without any nice atmosphere.

The room service is anything but prompt or friendly. If I call room service at Sheraton, Hyatt or Interconti, they will already know my name, ask if everything is fine, take my order and wish me pleasant stay. They will also try to make the impossible possible, like overnight laundry, etc. But at HI they simply couldn't care less.

Particularly bad experiences:

~ double charging

The New York JFK airport HI has charged my credit card twice for the same stay. It has been reported in travel journals such Business Traveller that this is quite a common practice with Holiday Inn. And although I was only staying for 6 hours at daytime on a stopover, they refused to give me the dayrate (a usual feature at airport hotels), so I had to pay for a 24hours stay.

~ no breakfast

The Paris CDG airport HI was not able to provide a breakfast at 6am. For an airport hotel which should be used to travellers departing all times of the day or night, this is a knock out criteria. The same goes for the Istanbul HI, which is not a classic airport hotel but is being used as such because it's rather near to Atatürk airport.

~ false advertising

HI's loyalty programme, Priority Club, boasts 5% discount for cardholders on EVERY rate. So far, however, every HI has refused to give me this discount on agency rates. A minor problem with Priority Club is that the miles never get through to your Frequent Flyer programme, unless you write them a dozen letters.

VERDICT:

Holiday Inn is only cheap and good at first sight. But a close look shows that it is priced the same as the famous international chains like Hyatt, Sheraton and Interconti - so it has to be compared with these. But that league seems to be one too high for HI. Holiday Inn doesn't even come close to offering the degree of customer satisfaction provided by these chains.

Copyright 2001 by Hansjörg Gebel, Witten, Germany

 

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