IHG to Add Nearly 1,000 InterContinental, Holiday Inn Hotel Rooms in South Korea

IHG (InterContinental Hotels Group) has signed an agreement with Gwangwondo Development Corporation (GDC) to manage two Resorts and Suites under the InterContinental Hotels & Resorts, Holiday Inn Hotels & Resorts and Holiday Inn Suites brands. This adds another close to 1,000 rooms to IHG’s pipeline in Korea and doubles the number of IHG hotels in this market.

The development will have three zones - the Golf and Villa Zone, the Resort Village Zone and the Winter Sports Zone. The InterContinental Alpensia Pyeong Chang Resort will have about 236 rooms, the Holiday Inn Alpensia Pyeong Chang Resort about 182 rooms and the four-tower Holiday Inn Alpensia Pyeong Chang Suites around 551 rooms. All the properties are expected to be completed by the second quarter of 2009.

IHG already has three hotels in South Korea, with a total of about 1,600 rooms. They are InterContinental COEX Seoul, InterContinental Grand Seoul and Holiday Inn Seongbuk. A fourth, Holiday Inn Gwangju, is under construction.

In 2007, about 6.4 million foreign tourists visited South Korea. Of these, 38 percent originated from Japan, 14.6 percent from China and 8.8 percent from USA. The number of inbound visitors from China increased by 26.3 percent from the previous year, while U.S. arrivals were up 4.7 percent.