Holiday Inn breaks with 55 years of tradition

Holiday Inn, the pioneer of roadside motels more than 50 years ago, will get its first new logo as part of $1 billion in renovations planned for the chain to revive sales.

InterContinental Hotels Group Plc, the world's largest hotel company by rooms, will upgrade more than 3,000 Holiday Inns and Holiday Inns Express worldwide, the Windsor, England- based company said today. The flowing script design on a green background logo, once featured on neon signs across America, will be replaced by a stylized white "H" on a green square.



Holiday Inn was founded by Kemmons Wilson as one motel in Memphis designed to give travellers clean and affordable lodging. Bass Plc, InterContinental's now-defunct former parent company, bought Holiday Inn in 1998.

One analsyt said: “The new logo is pretty awful. I expected Kemmons Wilson will be turning in his grave.”