Intercontinental Hotel Group

IHG organised an exceptional series of conferences and a major exhibition to launch the new Holiday Inn brand. Over 6000 guests, ranging from the owners and operators to trade and supply companies, were invited to the largest rebrand in the hotel chains’ history. They needed a company to provide the websites, email broadcasts, event management support, online booking, travel/hotel booking and payment service – at exceptionally short notice when let down by their main agency. The audience was diverse in nationality, time zones, interest perspective and welfare/travel requirements.

IHG team were still developing the message and conference agenda during and after the time set aside to build the website. Free Rein chose, obviously therefore, to create a content managed system that supported;

• multiple websites
• choice of design templates
• site dependent booking options
• grouped event management statistics
• streaming video links
• integrated mailing with matching designs

The final solution was extended during the programme to handle an exhibition website and booking system for exhibitors. The mailer was used for delivering reporting instructions and post-event correspondence including driving the feedback responses.

The heavy reliance on Free Rein to build the systems extended, as trust built, to managing the system, managing the finance accounts and daily reporting on booking and invitation responses. The event ended as 5 overlapping 2-day conferences to handle the numbers with an immersive experience exhibition. Free Rein went on to support following conferences.