InterContinental restructures

SINGAPORE InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) has unveiled the shape of its new organisation in Asia Pacific following the company's global de-merger and re-branding from Six Continents Hotels. The new organisation has the InterContinental, Crowne Plaza and Holiday Inn hotel brands in its portfolio. Recently IHG added two hotels to its portfolio in Bangkok through a partnership with President Hotel and Tower. The former Le Meridien President and Le Royale hotels will be re-branded to InterContinental Bangkok and Holiday Inn Bangkok respectively in July. Geographically, key operational functions are being moved closer to growth markets. The Asia Pacific region, which currently has 144 IHG hotels and close to 40,000 rooms in 22 countries will include four sub-regions to allow for development plans in each part of Asia Pacific. Over the next three years, IHG intends to build its portfolio in all four sub-regions and look for growth in high-demand markets including China and North Asia and Australia. "Despite several factors that are creating challenging times for the whole industry in this region at present, IHG continues to pursue its business plan aggressively in order to to build th quality of its assets in Asia Pacific and expand the number of choices available to customers in key growth markets," IHG managing director, Asia Pacific, Mr Patrick Imbardelli said. "The new shape of the organisation fits with the long-term strategic view we take of investment in Asia Pacific and we have been through turbulent times before."