IHG Signs Two New Holiday Inn Properties in Central America

Edited: Jennifer Brenner
Source: InterContinental Hotels Group

Furthering its reach into Central America, IHG (InterContinental Hotels Group), the world's largest hotel group by number of rooms, announced plans to develop two new Holiday Inn hotels in Central America, the first two of seven agreed-upon properties that will be built in the region through a development agreement with the Hotel Division of San Salvador-based Grupo AGRISAL.

The first two properties to be developed include a six-story full-service Holiday Inn in San Jose, Costa Rica and a 13-story Holiday Inn Express in San Salvador, El Salvador. These will be IHG’s second and third properties with Grupo AGRISAL’s Hotel Division, which also owns the Holiday Inn San Salvador.

“We are proud to be broadening our presence in Central America, especially with Grupo AGRISAL, in which we have a solid relationship that began in 2006,” says Alvaro Diago, Area President, IHG Latin America. “We are excited to announce these two new hotels and look forward to the next five that follow.”

The Holiday Inn Escazú San Jose in Costa Rica will be located in the exclusive district of Escazú in San José. The 163-room Holiday Inn will be part of the Riverwalk Business & Plaza Shopping Mall development which includes a variety of stores and boutiques as well as an office building. The property will be in close proximity to the city’s CIMA Hospital and Medical Center, a convenient location for the medical tourism sector, and thirty minutes from San José’s International Airport. It is scheduled to open in the third quarter 2010.

The Holiday Inn Express Zona Rosa San Salvador in El Salvador will be located in the trendiest district of San Salvador known as Zona Rosa, surrounded by restaurants, bars, shops and offices. The 151-room Holiday Inn Express will be part of a new commercial development consisting of two office towers and a shopping mall. It is slated to open in the second semester 2011.

The agreement with the Hotel Division of Grupo AGRISAL is for the development of a total of seven IHG-branded hotels in Central America within a five year period under a license agreement with a company in the InterContinental Hotels Group.

“We are thrilled to be entering into these two new franchise agreements with IHG,” says Eduardo Quiñónez, Executive Director, the Hotel Division of Grupo AGRISAL. “We value and trust IHG, as it is one of the largest and most global hotel companies in the world, and we look forward to developing other properties with them.”

The new signings come on the heels of several recent Holiday Inn signings for IHG, including agreements with five different developers for a Holiday Inn hotel and four Holiday Inn Express properties in Brazil, as well as the extension of the franchise agreement with Santiago, Chile-based Talbot, S.A., for seven existing Holiday Inn Express hotels in Chile and Argentina and one Holiday Inn located at Santiago’s International Airport, Chile.