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Crowne Plaza and Holiday Inn Express to open at London Heathrow T4
You would have thought that IHG already had enough hotels in the Heathrow area but, apparently, their management don’t think so!
As things stand IHG already has the following hotels within 5 miles of London’s Heathrow Airport:
- Holiday Inn – Heathrow Ariel
- Holiday Inn – Heathrow M4 J4
- Holiday Inn – Heathrow T5
- Holiday Inn Express – Heathrow T5
- Crowne Plaza – Heathrow
And now they’ve announced a dual branded hotel development at Heathrow Terminal 4.
Due to open in “early 2018” the Crowne Plaza Heathrow T4 and the Holiday Inn T4 will be directly connected to Terminal 4 via an air bridge and also offer direct access to the London Underground, Heathrow Express train service and nearby motorways.
For reference, the following airlines depart/arrive Heathrow T4:
According to IHG:
Crowne Plaza London – Heathrow T4 will feature 300 bedrooms and a range of business and meeting facilities including five meeting rooms and two boardrooms, to enable guests to be the most productive during their stay.
Meanwhile the 450-room Holiday Inn Express London – Heathrow T4 hotel will be a ‘next generation’ Holiday Inn Express hotel featuring the latest technology, an Express Café and Bar and larger cosier beds.
Both hotels will be in the same building so they’ll share staff members, meeting spaces and the leisure & fitness facilities…which presumably means the primary differentiator will be the rooms. And that would appear to raise the following question: Why bother?
Standard room at the Holiday Inn Express Heathrow T5
Airport hotels aren’t normally used for long stays so why would a traveler not just pick the cheaper of the two options every time? Presumably the Crowne Plaza will be the more expensive of the two hotels but just how much better will the rooms be (compared to the rooms in the Holiday Inn section) to encourage people to hand over the extra cash?
I know that the “Express” part of the Holiday Inn’s name is meant to mean that the hotel offers less amenities and dining options….but what is there going to be to stop guests wandering over to the Crowne Plaza or to the airport terminal to get what they need? It’s not like their options will be limited.
I genuinely don’t understand how this is meant to work so, if there’s anyone out there that “gets it”, please, please let me know! 🙂
