IHG Invests in Texas Portfolio

InterContinental Hotel Group is going big in the Lone Star State, growing its portfolio with 14 new properties in 2024, covering business travel needs from airport lodging to luxury hotels in locations across Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio and other business travel and meetings markets. The investment is part of a hospitality surge in the state, according to jobs reports from the Texas Workforce Commission. In each April and May, which is the latest data available, jobs in hospitality and leisure grew by nearly 7,000, making it among the highest growth industries in the state.

It doesn’t hurt that Amazon continues to expand its footprint in the capital of Austin, attracting more business travel to the city. IHG has four hotels on the opening docket for the capital city this year: the premium EVEN hotel in Austin’s Uptown and, by the airport, a midscale Avid hotel and the new all-suite Atwell. All three opened earlier this year. A Holiday Inn Express opened in June also by the airport.  

San Antonio is another city with heavy development activity, particularly in the Riverwalk area surrounding the convention center. IHG has focused two luxury and lifestyle brands in San Antonio: the InterContinental San Antonio Riverwalk opened this week, with more than 18,000 square feet of meeting space across from the Henry B. Gonzales Convention Center. The Kimpton San Antonio is slated to open in August, between downtown and the convention center, also with 11,000 square feet of meeting space.

In the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, IHG will open a Hotel Indigo Irving in October. It recently welcomed the Avid in downtown Fort Worth as well as the Holiday Inn Express Haltam City, just outside of Fort Worth, and another Holiday Inn Express in Frisco. The Holiday Inn Express Waco is slated to open next month.

According to Lodging Econometrics, IHG isn’t the only hotel brand aggressively pursuing growth in the U.S. in 2024, but it is among the most bullish. LE forecasts that Marriott will lead new hotel openings with 192 new hotels/22,898 rooms for a 2.5 percent growth rate. Both Hilton and IHG also will grow by 2.5 percent this year. Hilton is anticipated to open 176 new hotels/with 20,004 rooms and IHG is looking to open 111 new hotels/10,924 rooms. These three brands represent more than 60 percent of the total U.S. hotel pipeline. More than 250 properties across all hotel brands opened in the U.S. in the first and second quarters of 2024.

Other Key Openings this Summer

As part of its larger expansion efforts, IHG opened its first InterContinental branded hotel in the Pacific Northwest last week—the 208-room InterContinental Bellvue at the Avenue. The property offers 12,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor meeting and event space in a separate conference center overlooking Lake Washington and connected to the main hotel via sky bridge. The Kimpton Claret, with 10,000 square feet of meeting space, opened in Denver on July 17.