Holiday Inn, Express Offer 1 Million Free Rooms to Summer Travelers

Brandweek, April 24, 2000 by Mike Beirne

Following a couple of Discover Channel tie-ins and plush toy giveaways, Holiday Inn and its value-oriented sister Holiday Inn Express this summer will latch on to a consumer packaged goods tactic for marketing "A Million Free Rooms."

Hyatt and Choice Hotel's Quality Inn also will be trolling for summer travelers with their own seasonal promos.

The two Bass Hotel brands, in their first joint promo in four years, drop 165 million coupons during May, June and July Consumers win a free night if the color-scrambled code on their coupon matches the code at POP Everyone checking in between Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends receives a Visa Value Book offering $100 worth of discounts from Hertz, airlines and other partners. Ben Marketing Group, Roswell, Ga., handles.

Ben's previous efforts for the mid-tier lodger used ocean and animal themes with toys, puzzles and books to win family travelers. This year, the HI brands sought a program with broader appeal to leisure travelers, not just families. Successful test runs during winter with Sunday newspaper coupons offering a second night free when guests pay the first night's full rack rate helped pave the way. The tactic is appropriate for reaching women who tend to be value seekers and plan most leisure travel, said Chris Milhous, Ben president, and a hotel coupon stands out in an envelope stuffed with discounts for frozen food and household cleansers.

Rival Hyatt will vie for summer travelers with Hyatt Touch Week-end offering discount rates, $25 dining certificate and late checkout. Print, direct mail and Internet support the promo, which also runs in the fall. Summer on Sale includes similar benefits at participating resorts, and Hyatt partners with the American Automobile Association to offer members special weekday and weekend rates via the auto club's newsletter.

Quality Inn continues to flag its Quality Sleeper bed by Serta with the Quality Miracle Giveaway sweeps from May 1 to Sept. 4. Quality will give away a mattress stuffed with $100,000, plus 10 $1,000 prizes. A print ad, via Gray Kirk VanSant, Baltimore, in Better Homes, Ladies Home Journal and Reader's Digest features the McCaughey Family's eight children, including the only known surviving set of septuplets, bouncing on the beds with the headline, "We know a thing or two about miracles. Not the least of which is finding a great mattress in a hotel room."