The ‘IHG Korea Showcase’ was held at InterContinental Seoul COEX and attended by 250 participants including travel agencies and wholesalers from across South Korea.
SINGAPORE – InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), one of the world’s leading hotel companies, held its first B2B sales event in South Korea, ‘IHG Korea Showcase’, and launched its regional sales office in South Korea on the back of a positive market outlook.
The ‘IHG Korea Showcase’ was held at InterContinental Seoul COEX and attended by 250 participants including travel agencies and wholesalers from across South Korea. A strong presence from the nine IHG hotels in South Korea as well as 29 selected IHG hotels from Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, U.K. and France joined the event to promote their latest hotel offerings and educate attendees on their properties and destinations.
Outbound travel in Korea has been growing steadily with the Korea Tourism Organisation recording 14.8 million departures in 2013, with inbound travel at 12 million arrivals. According to a travel and tourism report from the World Travel & Tourism Council, visitor arrivals are set to nearly-double from this figure to more than 22 million by 2025.
James Britchford, Head of Sales Asia, Middle East & Africa said; “At IHG we are already investing behind the strong projected growth in South Korea as both visitor arrivals and outbound travel are growing, with arrivals set to nearly-double in the next decade. We are always looking for opportunities to grow our portfolio of brands in key markets and look forward to welcoming more in South Korea in the near future.”
“It is a great time to be opening a dedicated sales office in South Korea and we are confident having a local team will strengthen our relationships with our business partners and help our hotels maximise the sales tools and resources we have to support increased rooms and MICE revenue.“
South Korea is fast becoming one of the top source markets for international travel into the larger Asia Pacific region. Currently about 20 percent of visitors to China come from South Korea, and in the next three years Korea outbound travel to countries in South East Asia and Australia are set to increase over six percent.
IHG Korea Showcase is IHG’s first B2B event of this scale and the company is looking at more trade event opportunities to discuss and showcase growth in South Korea.
IHG’s new sales office in South Korea joins six other offices across the Asia, Middle East and Africa (AMEA) region, including the UAE, Japan, Singapore, Australia, India and South Africa.
Over the past year IHG opened two hotels in Korea: the fifth Holiday Inn in the country, Holiday Inn Incheon Songdo, and the first Holiday Inn Express, Holiday Inn Express Seoul Euljiro. Holiday Inn Express is one of the world’s fastest growing hotel brands with more than 2,000 hotels opened worldwide and a further 500 in the pipeline. IHG currently has nine hotels open across three brands in Korea: InterContinental, Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express.
As IHG expands its presence to cater to projected tourism growth, the company has also appointed Jacob Yi to the newly created position of Area General Manager, Korea. In his expanded role, Jacob oversees the operations of the company’s managed hotels in Korea whilst continuing to drive the performance of IHG’s three hotels and resorts in Alpensia Pyeongchang.
Earlier this year the company signed a management agreement with SiLee Ltd to develop its first hotel in the second largest city in South Korea, Holiday Inn Busan Seomyun. The hotel will also fall under Jacob’s remit when it opens in 2017.
IHG has a global portfolio of more than 4,900 hotels in nearly 100 countries, with a development pipeline of almost 1,300 hotels.
Photo caption: Holiday Inn Incheon Songdo
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