Holiday Inn Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
This article is about the hotel chain. For the film, please see Holiday Inn (film).Holiday Inn is a brand name applied to low to mid-range hotels within the InterContinental Hotels Group.
The original Holiday Inn chain of hotels was founded in 1952 in Memphis, Tennessee by Kemmons Wilson to provide cheap family accommodation for travellers within the USA.
Wilson initially came up with the idea after a 1955 family trip to Washington, DC. The name Holiday Inn was given to the original hotel by its architect as a joke reference to the Bing Crosby movie.
The chain grew internationally and developed other brands such as Holiday Inn Express in 1991.
In 1988 Holiday Inns International was purchased by Bass Brewers (later to become the InterContinental Hotels Group), followed by the remaining Holiday Inn hotels in 1990. The brand name Holiday Inn is still owned by the original Holiday Inn group and leased as a franchise to InterContinental.