IHG has further expanded voco’s global footprint, with the launch of the upscale hotel brand in the US and Greater China.
The group has signed agreements to develop three voco franchise hotels in the US, including New York City; St. Augustine, Florida; and Columbia, Missouri. Among the trio, the first voco-branded hotel expected to open is the Franklin Hotel located in the Upper East Side neighbourhood of New York City.
IHG is also set to debut voco in Greater China, with the brand’s first property in the region to open in Hangzhou very soon. Next will be a conversion property in Wuhan, an independent hotel which will be rebranded as voco Wuhan Xinhua in 2021.
Over in the EMEAA region, the company now has 36 hotels which are open or in the pipeline, with 24 conversion and new-build hotels due to open in key cities such as Paris, Sydney, Melbourne, Frankfurt, Edinburgh, Krakow, Danang and Den Haag over the next five years.
Since the brand’s launch in 2018, a mix of 12 conversion and new-build voco hotels have opened across the UK, Continental Europe, the Middle East and Australia.
voco has seen an uplift in conversion activity during 1H2020. The brand’s current development pipeline of 28 properties will take it into 19 countries over the next five years, and IHG said that voco remains on track to open more than 200 hotels in urban and leisure locations over the next decade.
Across the full breadth of its portfolio, IHG CEO Keith Barr said that conversions accounted for a quarter of the group’s signings overall in 1H2020, led by voco. Rebranded properties include brands such as Regent, InterContinental, Hotel Indigo, Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express.
