InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) is a global hotel company whose goal is to create great hotels guests love. We have more guest rooms than any other hotel company in the world – that's nearly 676,000 rooms in over 4,600 hotels in nearly 100 countries and territories around the world.

We operate nine hotel brands – InterContinental, Crowne Plaza, Hotel Indigo, Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Staybridge Suites, Candlewood Suites, EVEN™ Hotels and HUALUXE™ Hotels and Resorts.

 

Our operating Systems

IHG's operating system is made up of all the things we do to drive demand for our brands. This includes our advertising and marketing campaigns, our 11 global call centres, 13 local language websites, our global sales team of more than 17,600 professionals, Priority Club Rewards – the world's largest hotel loyalty scheme with over 71 million members – and all the advantages that IHG's global hotel distribution and scale brings to brand awareness.

 

Our focus on the biggest markets where our scale really counts ensures that we concentrate our resources on the opportunities that will provide the greatest return.

 

Our Stragetic Priorities

Improving the performance of our brands	Using our insight to make our brands the first choice for guests Delivering consistent customer experiences
Generating excellent returns from our hotels	Improving hotel revenue by encouraging guest visits Improving the efficiency of our hotels and operating processes
Putting our market scale and knowledge to good use	Using our worldwide scale and experience to convert more hotels to our brands Making the most of our global presence – guests choose brands they know when they travel
Strengthening our organisation	Investing in our people and our ability to do business Building strong partnerships within our own company and with our owners across the world

 

Our Business Model

We operate hotels in three different ways – as a franchisor, a manager and on an owned and leased basis. Our business model focuses on managing and franchising hotels, whilst our business partners own the bricks and mortar.

Franchising - This is the largest part of our business: 3,934 hotels operate under franchise agreements.

Managing - We manage 658 hotels worldwide.

Owning - We own 10 hotels worldwide (less than 1% of our portfolio).

 

Our CSR Approach

Our strategy is based on innovation and collaboration. Making sure we have the right policies, management and measurement systems in place to deliver against our strategy is the responsibility of our CR Board Committee, which we set up in 2009. The Committee is chaired by Jennifer Laing, a Non-Executive Director. It met three times in 2011, focusing on the global expansion of the IHG Academy programme, the launch of the IHG Shelter in a Storm Programme and the ongoing roll-out of Green Engage. Our CR Board Committee was also kept up to date on how IHG managed its response to carbon regulation in the UK, which for the first time in 2011 required the business to report the carbon emissions of all UK properties.

 

We have established further committees to oversee globally aligned decisions. These include our Green Engage Council and our Community Strategy Committee, both of which met to discuss improvements to and expansions of our programmes during the year.