IHG to bring Holiday Inn brand to Osaka this year

InterContinental Hotels Group has signed a deal to open the Holiday Inn Osaka Namba in partnership with the Japan Hotel REIT Investment Corporation (JHR), the largest Japanese real estate investment trust in the country specializing in hotel property investment. JHR currently owns a total of 38 hotels across Japan, and the Holiday Inn Osaka Namba is the REIT’s first partnership with IHG. The hotel, currently operating as the Hotel Vista Grande Osaka, will rebrand as the Holiday Inn Osaka Namba by the end of 2016.

"Osaka saw a 91-percent growth in international tourist numbers in 2015, and we are confident the brand awareness achieved by Holiday Inn’s global network of over 1,150 hotels will attract strong occupancies from international guests looking to stay with a familiar hotel brand,” Hans Heijligers, head of Japan at IHG, said in a statement.
  

With a focus on increasing annual international visitor arrival numbers to 40 million by the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games, Japan’s capital city and its outlying regions are all set to benefit from the tourism boom. Osaka is positioned to capitalize with Kansai International Airport now another hub for flight routes from China and across Asia. 

Holiday Inn currently has 1,152 hotels in more than 70 countries. In Japan, there are Holiday Inn hotels in Sapporo, Sendai, Kanazawa and Miyazaki with Osaka now bringing the total to five.

First established in 2006, IHG ANA Hotels Group Japan, a joint venture between IHG and ANA Holdings, is the largest international hotel company in Japan operating a total of 32 hotels combining IHG’s three international brands--InterContinental, Crowne Plaza and Holiday Inn--with the local ANA brand power. The new Holiday Inn will join IHG’s established InterContinental and ANA Crowne Plaza hotels in Osaka.