The huge momentum behind the popular Hotel Indigo and voco brands continues, as IHG Hotels & Resorts and Pro-invest Group build on their partnership with the signing of two high-profile conversion hotels in the Brisbane CBD.
voco Brisbane City Centre and Hotel Indigo Brisbane City Centre will become the latest additions to the River City’s hotel scene, as Mercure Brisbane and ibis Brisbane rebadge under IHG’s world-class upscale brands following a repositioning and extensive refurbishment.
voco Brisbane City Centre, which will overlook the Brisbane River and some of the city’s best cultural institutions, promises to bring the brand’s vibrant, reliably fun vision to life. Each of the hotel’s 194 guestrooms will enjoy a full refurbishment to elevate them to premium voco standards, while the hotel’s bar will get a complete makeover that will deliver a new era of hospitality and help it show off its sweeping river views when it opens later in 2021.
Then, opening in 2022, the riverside location of Hotel Indigo Brisbane City Centre will play into the essence of the hotel’s neighbourhood story, as the hidden gems that surround the property will be weaved into the guestrooms, restaurants, meeting facilities, design and service offering. Designer Joseph Pang will be charged with revitalising the interiors of the 212-room hotel while the hotel’s restaurant, bar and café will be completely reimagined.
The opening of these fantastic hotels signals strong growth in the Brisbane market for both Pro-invest and IHG Hotels & Resorts, sitting alongside Pro-invest’s Holiday Inn Express Brisbane Central, which opened in 2017, and Hotel X, which IHG and Pointcorp are opening in the Fortitude Valley precinct in February 2021.
Abhijay Sandilya, IHG’s Vice President, Development – Australasia, Japan & Pacific, said: “We are absolutely delighted to build our presence in Brisbane with the signing of two of our most colourful, dynamic and boutique brands. The personality that will be injected into the properties is going to be quite unlike anything the city has seen and we’re incredibly excited to bring the community on the journey with us. With a prime CBD location that puts both hotels within walking distance to everything the city has to offer, voco and Hotel Indigo Brisbane are undoubtedly going to be the hotels of choice for both leisure and business travellers.”
Jan Smits, Co-CEO of Pro-invest, said: “It’s very exciting for Pro-invest to sign our second voco hotel with IHG Hotels & Resorts, alongside voco Auckland City Centre, and to bring the Hotel Indigo brand into our portfolio. It builds on the great partnership we have with IHG, which currently includes 11 open or pipeline Holiday Inn Express properties. The location of these two hotels couldn’t be better for business and leisure travellers. With the power of the IHG distribution and loyalty systems, coupled with rich and exciting brands, we are confident that guests will enjoy all that these hotels have to offer”
The Hotel Indigo brand has gone from strength to strength over the years, with 126 open globally and another 99 in the pipeline. In Australasia, Hotel Indigo Adelaide Markets will open in March 2021, the first to open in this market, with more to come in Melbourne, Sydney and Auckland.
Currently, there are two voco hotels in Australia – voco Gold Coast and voco Kirkton Park Hunter Valley – with a third, voco Melbourne Central slated to open later in 2021, along with future openings in Sydney and Auckland.
IHG currently has 56 hotels operating under five brands in Australasia, including: InterContinental, Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn, voco and Holiday Inn Express, with another 34 in the pipeline.[1]
