Scandic forges links with Holiday Inn

Scandic Hotels is to convert its four UK hotels to the Holiday Inn brand under a franchising agreement involving its 17 properties outside Scandinavia.

Under the terms of the deal, the company's three London hotels - at Nelson Dock, Victoria and Gatwick - will become core brand Holiday Inns, while the Edinburgh property looks likely to become a Crowne Plaza.

The other countries involved are Austria, where Scandic has two hotels, Belgium, where it has one, and Germany, where the addition of its 10 properties will make Holiday Inn the country's biggest brand with 66 hotels.

Last week's announcement comes almost three years since Scandic parted company with Choice Hotels International after a two-year franchise deal. Scandic claimed at the time that Choice had provided only low-yield group bookings, and the US group was upset at Scandic's failure to rebadge properties to its Clarion brand.

Roland Nilsson, president and chief executive officer of Scandic Hotels, said the deal would be different to that with Choice in that it was a long-term agreement, the Scandic name would disappear from all 17 hotels, and it would benefit both parties.

"We believe one of the strengths of Scandic is our operating efficiency," he told Caterer. "Our weakness is that the brand is not well-known outside Scandinavia, as we started our international development too late."

Mr Nilsson said the alliance also envisaged development of further Holiday Inns by Scandic, with the UK a target.

In addition to the franchise deal, the two companies have signed a world-wide marketing alliance under which they will cross-sell each other's properties through their reservations systems and honour their various customer loyalty programmes.

The addition of the four Scandic hotels, together with the opening this week of an 80-bedroom Garden Court in Glasgow, takes Holiday Inn's UK presence to 28 hotels with a total of 4,452 bedrooms.