InterContinental Hotels & Resorts by IHG

Company type	Subsidiary
Industry	Hotels
Founded	4 April 1946; 78 years ago (1946-04-04)
Founder	Juan Trippe
Number of locations	208 hotels and resorts
Owner	Pan Am Corporation(1946–1981) Grand Metropolitan(1981–1988) Saison Group(1988–1998) Bass(1998–2000) Six Continents(2000–2003) InterContinental Hotels Group(2003–present)
Website	ihg.com/intercontinental

InterContinental Hotels & Resorts by IHG is a British-American luxury hotel brand created in 1946 byPan Am founderJuan Trippe.^[1] It has been part of UK-basedInterContinental Hotels Group since 1998.^[1] As of January 2023, there were 208 InterContinental hotels worldwide, with 70,287 rooms.^[2]

In 1945, U.S. PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt andJuan Trippe, President ofPan Am, discussed their concern for Latin America's need for development funds at a White House breakfast. The two men thought that one way to attract businessmen and tourists would be to offer luxury hotels in key cities.^[3] Trippe contactedStatler Hotels' chief executive H.B. Callis, and his company undertook a feasibility study, but the company decided the program would be too expensive. Trippe contacted multiple other US hotel chains, but none showed interest. Roosevelt requested that Pan Am take the lead in developing 5000 hotel rooms in Latin America, with a projected cost of $50,000,000. Pan Am's profit that year was only $3 million, so a $25,000,000 line of credit was arranged for Pan Am with theExport–Import Bank of the United States.^[4] Trippe agreed to form a subsidiary company to foster the implementation of the idea. The hotels would also serve to accommodate Pan Am crews and passengers in destinations where upscale hotels were not yet present.^[3]

On 4 April 1946, theInternational Hotels Corporation was founded, with Pan Am owning a 100% stake.^[4] Throughout 1946, company executives traveled to cities across Latin America on fact-finding trips to scout potential locations. In early 1947, Pan Am decided thatIntercontinental Hotels Corporation would more accurately reflect the chain's eventual global goals for expansion, and the company was renamed.^[4] The company signed its first lease that year, for the partially-completed Hotel Victoria Plaza in Montevideo, Uruguay. Construction there would end up continuing for more than five years.^[4] Throughout 1948, more locations were scouted, and in early 1949 agreements were signed for properties in Caracas and Maracaibo, Venezuela.

On 1 May 1949, Intercontinental assumed operation of its first hotel, the 85-room Grande Hotel, inBelém, Brazil, which had been constructed in the early 20th Century.^[5] On 1 January 1950, Intercontinental assumed operation of its second hotel, theHotel Carrera, in Santiago, Chile.^[6] Over the next three years, the company took over three more existing hotels – the Hotel del Prado in Barranquilla, Colombia; the Hotel Reforma in Mexico City andThe Princess in Hamilton, Bermuda. In 1953, Intercontinental opened three newly constructed properties – the Hotel Victoria Plaza in Montevideo, theHotel Tamanaco in Caracas and the Hotel del Lago in Maracaibo. That same year, they also opened theHotel Tequendama in Bogotá, Colombia, the largest hotel in South America and the first hotel to be developed, designed and constructed completely under Intercontinental supervision.^[4] All four properties were designed by the Chicago firm ofHolabird, Root & Burgee. In 1955, Intercontinental purchased a 47% stake in theHotel Nacional de Cuba, in Havana. By 1958, the chain had sixteen hotels in operation throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.^[4]

In 1961, Intercontinental Hotels opened its first property in the Middle East, thePhoenicia Intercontinental Beirut, inLebanon. In 1962, the chain expanded to three more continents, assuming management of theDucor Palace Hotel inMonrovia,Liberia in April,^[7] opening theHotel Indonesia inJakarta,Indonesia, in July,^[8] andThe Southern Cross inMelbourne, Australia, in August.^[9] The first properties in Europe followed in May 1963, with simultaneous openings inDublin, Cork and Limerick, Ireland.^[10] In 1964, Intercontinental became the first American hotel chain to operate inEastern Europe, when it assumed management of theHotel Esplanade inZagreb,Yugoslavia. The chain would continue to be unique among western hospitality companies in operating behind the "Iron Curtain", opening properties inBudapest,Bucharest,Prague andWarsaw between 1968 and 1974.^[4]

The company continued constructing new luxury hotels in Pan Am destinations around the world. In its hotel designs, Intercontinental aspired to combineMid-century modern American luxury with decorative elements drawn from local cultures.^[3] Between 1961 and 1985, Intercontinental's head designer, Neal Prince, designed interiors and branding for 135 hotels.^[3][11]

The chain was officially rebranded asInter•Continental Hotels in 1966, with the name commonly spelled with a hyphen as Inter-Continental when typed.^[12]

In 1972, Inter-Continental started a line of moderately priced hotels, called Forum Hotels.^[13] The first Forum property was the Lee Gardens Hotel in Hong Kong.^[14] Inter-Continental opened its first hotel in the United States in 1973, when it assumed management of theMark Hopkins Hotel in San Francisco.^[15]

Facing significant financial losses,^[16] Pan Am sold their profitable Inter-Continental Hotels division toGrand Metropolitan on 19 August 1981 for $500 million. On 1 April 1982, the new owners merged their existing chain of 17 Grand Metropolitan Hotels into Inter-Continental and its sibling chain Forum Hotels.^[17]

Later in 1982, Inter-Continental formed a joint venture with Scanticon International, a Danish company that had opened a highly successful conference hotel near Princeton, New Jersey in 1981.^[18] Inter-Continental owned 80% of the business, with Scanticon controlling 20%. Additional Scanticon conference hotels were opened in Minneapolis and Denver, before InterContinental exited the joint venture in 1991.

Grand Metropolitan sold Inter-Continental Hotels to the Tokyo-based Seibu Saison Group on 1 October 1988 for $2.27 billion, for a profit of $850 million after taxes.^[19] On 20 February 1998, the Saison Group sold the chain to Bass PLC, for $2.9 billion.^[20]

In 2000, Bass sold its namesake brewing business, along with its name and red triangle trademark, toInterbrew, for £2.3 billion.^[21] On 27 June 2001, Bass renamed itselfSix Continents, focusing on its hotels and its 2000 restaurants and bars. The name Six Continents was chosen from among 10,000 staff submissions, and was already the name of the Inter-Continental Hotels loyalty club.^[22] In 2003, Six Continents demerged its bar and pubs business into a separate company,Mitchells & Butlers, and the hospitality company was renamedInterContinental Hotels Group.^[23] At the same time, Inter-Continental Hotels dropped the hyphen in its name and becameInterContinental Hotels. The chain is one of numerous brands today within the company.

InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown, located within theWilshire Grand Center in downtown Los Angeles, is the largest InterContinental in the Americas and thetallest building in Los Angeles.^[24]

InterContinental manages theWillard InterContinental Hotel indowntown Washington, D.C., two blocks east of theWhite House. The 178-year-old hotel has hosted many heads of state.^[25]

InterContinental briefly operated a hotel in Lagos, but withdrew from Nigeria in 2018, after a disagreement with its local partners over the terms of how to get the property out of receivership, just four years after the hotel opened.^[26]

TheInter-Continental Kabul opened in 1969, but ceased operation following theSoviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. The hotel continues to operate independently using the Inter-Continental name, but unaffiliated with the chain.^[27]

Media related toInterContinental hotels at Wikimedia Commons

• Official website

• InterContinental hotels
• Hotel chains in the United States
• Hotels established in 1946
• InterContinental Hotels Group brands
• Franchises
• Pan Am

• CS1 maint: archived copy as title
• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• Commons category link is on Wikidata