5 IHG Awards for Holiday Inn Resort
The Holiday Inn Resort Pensacola Beach has won its fifth consecutive Quality Excellence Award from InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) – winning every year from 2012 to 2016. IHG has 5,000 hotels over 12 brands in nearly 100 territories and countries.
Innisfree is no stranger to recognition from IHG. In 2011, the hotel company won Developer of the Year from IHG for the Holiday Inn Resort Pensacola Beach. In 2015 came the Newcomer Award for the Holiday Inn Resort Fort Walton Beach. Now, we celebrate five years of Quality Excellence for the resort on Pensacola Beach.
The Quality Excellence Award recognizes hotels with exceptionally high standards in product quality, hotel service delivery and guest satisfaction. Lead Storyteller Ashley Kahn Salley recently spoke with GM Ron Wilson to talk about what this award means to his property – and Innisfree Hotels.
This is your fifth consecutive year to win a Quality Excellence Award from IHG. To what do you attribute your property’s success?
Keeping a highly motivated team that understands we must provide our best with every guest with every stay. We have a terrific entertainment package that draws the family. Kids are are heroes, and tell mom and dad where to go.
What does this particular award mean to your team?
Winning this award means you are part of the very best in hospitality. To achieve this award means your property is in the top 3% of all hotels competing for it. It also looks very good on one’s resume.
How do you and your teammates set the Holiday Inn Resort apart from other hotels?
Back to our overall entertainment … with Mermaids, Pirates, kids’ activities, a fantastic Tiki bar and best view on the beach, two hot tubs, a beautiful lazy river pool with water falls and fountains, two fire pits on both sides of the pool deck, plenty of seating and lounges for the guests, and we keep it very upbeat with high energy music played over Bose speakers. We also have live family entertainment on Saturdays.
Share some of the ways you are setting a new standard for Holiday Inns.
Last year, Holiday Inn used us for their summer promotion with country music stars “Big and Rich” on stage on our pool deck. It was a huge promotion. And this year, we are launching another promotion for IHG with the Miles of Smiles campaign. We have chocolate milk happy hours once per week with milk and cookies for the kiddos. Also Clifford the Big Red Dog is coming for a meet-and-greet for a Scholastic event. We have children’s books at the front desk for the young kids to check out and read as well. IHG loves our property.
How does Innisfree Hotels give you the support you need to create fun, memorable experiences in your hotel?
I believe Innisfree is the trend maker even for the resort brand. We see this each time we attend the annual IHG conference, which we just returned from. They allow us to be as creative as we want to be … no holding us back. In fact, creating fun memorable experiences is expected. So we take it further by raising the entertainment bar, if you will, to new levels. If you read our reviews, you will find that our guest experiences here are almost custom experiences. Our staff ‘gets’ it! This is our home, and we welcome you into it and make sure you are beyond happy during your entire stay. There is always something fun going on at the resort. There’s no limit to what Innisfree will allow us to do. As long as it’s legal, of course! (Laughs).
– As told to Ashley Kahn Salley
Lead Storyteller, Innisfree Hotels