Holiday Inn Express

Holiday Inn Express is an American-based mid-priced hotel chain within the InterContinental Hotels Group family of brands. Originally founded as an "express" hotel, their focus is on offering limited services at a reasonable price. Standard amenities lean toward the convenient and practical which cater to business travelers and short-term stays. As of September 2019, there are 2,826 Holiday Inn Express hotels featuring over 292,000 rooms worldwide. The Holiday Inn Express concept was intended to target the "upper economy" market segment, offering limited service, low-price lodging. In Europe, the hotels were known as Express by Holiday Inn, but this variation was phased out during the Holiday Inn Global Brand Relaunch which was announced in 2006. Holiday Inn Express was founded in 1990 under the ownership of Bass. Plans at the time called for 250 locations to be open by 1995. The first three hotels under the Holiday Inn Express name all opened in 1990. These were located in Nashville, Tennessee; Abilene, Texas; and Poughkeepsie, New York. All three were converted from existing Holiday Inn properties. In 1996, the brand's first European location opened in Scotland. Starting in 1998, Holiday Inn Express started an ad campaign that featured ordinary people achieving superior feats, such as averting a nuclear disaster or performing like rock stars. When questioned on whether or not they are professionals, they would attribute their skills to their stay there with the reply: "No, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night!" The commercials originally ended with the tag line "It won't make you smarter. But you'll feel smarter." which was changed to "Stay smart, Stay at Holiday Inn Express." in 2000. The ads were created by Fallon Minneapolis, a unit of the French Publicis Group. These ads have received positive reviews, and have been so successful they have crossed over into popular culture, having been featured in late night comedian jokes and political cartoons. The ad campaign continued to air until 2009.