Holiday Inn 2012 Annual Report Download - page 9

OVERVIEW BUSINESS REVIEW GOVERNANCE
GROUP FINANCIAL
STATEMENTS
PARENT COMPANY FINANCIAL STATEMENTS OTHER INFORMATION
Chief Executive’s Review 7
service, irrespective of ownership model.
This is a complex task and our success
has required significant innovation and
effort as we have worked hand-in-hand
with our owners to deliver on it.
Our suite of People Tools help our owners
and General Managers to develop a
BrandHearted culture, make IHG and its
hotels a great place to work and deliver the
brand promise to our guests. To support
communities and aid recruitment we have
developed the IHG Academy programme,
which is a collaboration between IHG
hotels or corporate offices and local
education providers and/or community
organisations around the world, providing
the opportunity to develop skills and
improve employment prospects. We
celebrated the opening of our 150th IHG
Academy in January this year and to date
over 10,000 participants have benefited
from the IHG Academy programme.
We continue to be rewarded for our efforts
in this area and have been recognised in
The Sunday Times 25 Best Big Companies
to Work For in 2012, as well as winning a
number of other awards globally.
Best-in-class Delivery
IHG provides our hotels with a powerful
combination of best-in-class revenue
platforms, programmes and tools with
which to drive profitable revenue to our
branded hotels – what we call our System.
The scale and power of this System
enables us to outperform by creating,
converting, yielding and retaining demand.
We continue to lead industry innovation,
and this can be seen in our progress with
mobile and web booking solutions. We are
a founding member of roomkey.com,
which was launched in 2012 as the first
industry-owned online hotel search
engine. Revenues from mobile devices
generated $330 million in 2012. During
2012, Holiday Inn was the first major
hotel brand to launch a travel app on the
Windows 8 platform. In 2012, 69 per cent
of total rooms revenue was delivered
through IHG’s channels, including our
call centres and websites, and our
award-winning Priority Club Rewards
programme. This is the largest loyalty and
rewards programme in the industry with
71.4 million members worldwide and is a
very important way in which we retain and
reward loyal guests. In 2012 Priority
Club Rewards members accounted for
41 per cent of the revenue generated in
our hotels. Our scale advantage means
that we can offer guests more choice,
which better meet their needs, and this
is a key driver of our outperformance.
Looking forward we remain confident.
Despite the uncertain economy in some
markets, long-term travel trends are
positive, particularly in developing
markets such as China and Asia generally.
The drivers of demand in the hotel
industry remain positive and IHG is
well-placed to benefit from these as we
continue to deliver against our clearly
defined strategy with preferred Brands
delivered by talented People and
best-in-class Delivery systems, all
underpinned by our strong governance
structure and Responsible Business
practices.
Richard Solomons
Chief Executive
The IHG Owners Association is
continuing to strengthen its alignment
with IHG – we’ve been on this journey for
nearly 60 years, and this latest chapter
is perhaps the most exciting yet.
In autumn 2012, the Executive
Committee of the IHG Owners
Association and the IHG Executive
Committee met in Oklahoma City to
fashion a plan that launched this latest
chapter. Together we agreed to refine
the focus of our work and established
five key priorities around which to
organise our work:
1. deliver the strongest brand portfolio
in the industry;
2. deliver the strongest set of tools
in the industry;
3. develop the strongest approach
to standards in the industry;
4. develop the strongest General
Manager talent in the industry; and
5. maintain the strongest reputation
for doing business the right way.
As a result of establishing these focussed
priorities, the IHG Owners Association
is reorganising its committee structure
to work towards this shared vision.
Our goal is to work closely with IHG
to increase owner margins by
strengthening the IHG brands.
We plan to begin by working in three
specific areas: energise General
Managers to be our brand promise
keepers; master the IHG revenue tools
in every hotel; and relentlessly pursue
these brand standards that matter.
IHG owners are proud of their hotels,
and the IHG Owners Association is proud
to work with IHG. Our mutual focus on
strengthening the IHG brands gives us
the greatest opportunity to increase
hotel value and owner margins.
Mike Hembree
2013 Chairman
IHG Owners Association
For information on the
IHG Owners Association
go to www.owners.org
Delivering Great Hotels Guests Love
Grow market share Sustainable margin growth
Invest in growth
Preferred
Brands
Talented
People
Best-in-class
Delivery
Responsible Business practice