IHG gets damages for loss of Holiday Inns

InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) is to receive 31m dollars in damages from FelCor Lodging Trust, which is removing eight of its hotels from the chain's control.

The real estate investment trust has agreed that the properties owned by FelCor and currently branded as Holiday Inn hotels will leave IHG's portfolio on March 1st this year.

The hotels, which contain 2,526 rooms, generated $8.5m of fees for IHG in 2011, around 1% of total Americas fee revenue.

This represented less than one per cent of all rooms branded as Holiday Inn or Holiday Inn Express in the region, IHG said, adding that it continued to grow its presence for Holiday Inn.

Over 12,500 Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express rooms were opened and almost 19,000 rooms were signed into the Americas pipeline in 2012.

The company said this took the total size of Holiday Inn brand operation in the Americas to over 315,000 rooms and the development pipeline to over 51,000 rooms as at 31 December 2012.

IHG is the world's biggest hotel chain and franchises, leases, manages or owns over 4,500 hotels and more than 672,000 guest rooms in nearly 100 countries and territories.