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Giving our guests safety and flexibility
While IHG® Hotels & Resorts has a long-standing commitment to rigorous cleaning, all of our hotels are now delivering an enhanced IHG Way of Clean programme.
Overseen by our Global Cleanliness Board, which works with industry-leading experts Cleveland Clinic, Ecolab and Diversey, IHG Way of Clean includes new training and equipment and increased communication to reassure guests on every step of the stay experience. This begins at the booking stage when those staying with us can see Hotel Cleanliness Ratings, and there is detailed cleanliness information on our websites, apps and in our hotels.
To make sure our guests enjoy consistently clean, safe stays, our evolved procedures also include:
- Reception: The rollout of digital check-in to minimise contact on arrival, front-desk screens, sanitiser stations, sanitised key cards and paperless check-out.
- Guest room: Visible verification of sanitised items, reduction of in-room furnishings and high-touch items, new laundry protocols and use of new technology.
- Public spaces and facilities: Additional deep cleaning of high-touch surfaces, physical distancing, ‘last cleaned’ charts, best practices for pools, fitness centres and lounges.
- Food and beverage: New standards and service approach to buffets, banquets, room service and catering.
- Meetings and events: Deep and more frequent cleaning of meeting and event spaces, access to ample hand sanitiser stations, physically distanced seating and meeting room layout, guidance on management of guest flow, single-serve and pre-packaged meal options.
- Physical distancing operating procedures and signage.
- Clear PPE standards for colleagues and guidance on the use of protective equipment.
- Mandatory face coverings for guests in some markets.
Wherever in the world a guest stays with us, they can rely on the IHG Clean Promise that their room meets industry-leading levels of cleanliness. If for some reason it doesn’t, guests can let the hotel know up to two hours after checking-in and we’ll work quickly to make it right. You can read more about IHG's Clean Promise here.
Bookings and loyalty
Flexibility is a big priority for guests at such an uncertain time. All bookings made directly with IHG can be changed without charge prior to the cancellation deadline, and we have special rates and benefits for our IHG Rewards members. You can find the latest information here.
Our loyalty members have been some of the first people we’ve welcomed back through our doors in markets where it’s possible to travel, and we’ve taken a number of steps to show just how much we value them. These include:
- Offering a chance to earn double points for each qualifying stay.
- Extending programme status.
- Pausing points expiration.
- Reducing criteria required to earn Elite tier status by 25%.
- Offering a free night after two qualifying stays for US guests who join IHG Rewards.
- The chance to earn and redeem points at more than 400 stunning hotels, thanks to our exclusive partnership with Mr & Mrs Smith
Looking after our business customers
We pride ourselves on being able to offer our business customers safe stays and great meeting experiences through our Meet with Confidence programme, which provides flexibility on cancellations and discounts, while prioritising guest safety. To meet increased demand for smaller events and hybrid meetings, we’ve launched two Meet with Confidence Hybrid Solutions at participating hotels, offering flexible booking options and new partnerships that enhance the meeting experience.
- Our Smart Solution includes working with Wellness 4 Humanity to provide rapid on-site Covid-19 testing and partnering with weframe to deliver all-in-one interactive technology for video conferencing.
- Our Expert Solution also partners with Wellness 4 Humanity and weframe, but features additional benefits, including a full suite of hybrid meeting capabilities to seamlessly connect in-person and virtual audiences, courtesy of our partnership with technology company Encore. In the US, our partnership with Williams-Sonoma will also provide meeting planners with exclusive digital food and beverage experiences for those attending remotely.
Being there for our owners and protecting our hotels
Many of our hotels around the world represent small, individually owned businesses, and the low demand and financial pressures presented by Covid-19 have created enormous challenges. We’re working closer than ever to provide the advice, support and flexibility required for a strong recovery and growth beyond. This includes:
- Providing tailored hotel-reopening and recovery toolkits alongside targeted marketing campaigns to drive demand.
- Identifying operational changes to improve profitability in a low-demand environment.
- Delivering sophisticated digital solutions so owners can manage costs and assess steps to improve performance at the touch of a button.
- Protecting our owners’ cash flow by providing discounts on staff training, expanding our procurement services to reduce costs, setting up cost-effective PPE supply chains, and offsetting increased safety and cleanliness costs with efficiency changes in other areas.
- Collaborating with governments, trade bodies and peers to help secure relief packages, and working to protect industry jobs and ensure a quicker and stronger recovery.
Taking care of our people
We know how incredibly difficult this time has been for our hotel teams and corporate colleagues. As we navigate the intricacies of a global recovery, which differs by market and even by city, we stand beside them all, deeply committed to doing everything possible to support them as one team.
Supporting our hotel colleagues
We want all our hotel colleagues to feel comfortable going to work knowing they have a safe and clean environment in which to help our guests have a wonderful stay. We are working to best practice Covid-specific training and operating procedures, aligned to regularly monitored advice from global health bodies, which has seen us introduce clear PPE standards, rollout training and certification, install front desk shields and make face coverings mandatory for guests in indoor public spaces at hotels in some regions, including the US and Canada.
As a recovery gathers pace, it’s important that our hotel colleagues are fully prepared and supported to return to their roles. So we’ve created our Stay TRUE service initiative to help team members understand how they can meet new standards and guidelines for cleanliness and safety, while still providing the memorable guest experiences and touches that come naturally to them. We’ve also updated our Learning Guides, which recommend courses for our new and returning colleagues.
Supporting our corporate colleagues
The physical and emotional wellbeing of our corporate colleagues is incredibly important to us and we understand the many new challenges they have encountered during the pandemic as they have had to work remotely. As the recovery continues, and we think about how we want to work in the future, it’s imperative our people maintain a healthy balance between their personal lives and work, and that parents and carers have the time they need for all of their responsibilities.
We’ve created several initiatives and tools to help, including introducing Recharge days to ensure everyone has the chance to enjoy an uninterrupted break, keeping colleagues connected through regular Q&A sessions with our CEO and members of our leadership team, and providing digital resources to help colleagues look after their wellbeing and connect with others.
Providing True Hospitality to our local communities
Having a positive impact on the thousands of communities our hotels and offices are a part of is important to everyone at IHG. Never has this been more needed than since the outbreak of Covid-19 and we have stepped up in many ways, including organising donation drives and food deliveries, providing hotel rooms for frontline workers and the homeless, and supporting the invaluable work of our charity partners.
Supporting governments and frontline workers
We are proud to be supporting government-led programmes around the world, which sees a small number of our hotels being used as vaccination centres, while others are providing accommodation for isolation and quarantine. Through this co-ordinated effort, we are providing rooms for the homeless and travellers needing a home from home during a challenging time, along with nurses, doctors and other frontline workers. As a thank you for the incredible work they are doing in our communities, we are continuing to offer frontline workers our Heroes Rate – discounted, flexible rates at participating hotels. We’re also working with our hotels to offer “surprise and delight” moments to these special guests, such as room upgrades and restaurant credits.
Giving for Good and supporting volunteers
In 2020, our Giving for Good Awards celebrated the efforts of more than 28,000 IHG colleagues, who provided 212,000 hours of support to their communities in response to Covid-19. Taking place in December, in honour of the UN International Day of Volunteering, the awards acknowledged everyone involved, from those serving food to frontline workers and providing a safe space to stay for the homeless, to people distributing food packages. To support those involved in worthy causes, we’ve also created a global volunteering resource for corporate colleagues, which is updated with new opportunities around the world so that people can make the most of their two days of volunteering leave each year.
Working with our charity partners
We have a long history of working with humanitarian aid partners around the world to support our communities in times of need. Since the pandemic struck, we have supported multiple relief efforts, including the China Red Cross building temporary hospital facilities, the British Red Cross Disaster Relief Alliance, and CARE International providing PPE in developing markets. We have also made it possible for IHG Rewards members to turn their loyalty points into financial donations for the International Federation of Red Cross and Crescent Societies’ Covid-19 Emergency Appeal, with around 7.5 million points having been donated so far.
We have also provided support for food bank and food provision charities in more than 70 countries, working with partners such as No Kid Hungry in the US and the Trussell Trust in the UK, while supporting the European Federation of Food Banks (FEBA) and The Global FoodBanking Network (GFN). Since March 2020, the GFN has provided meals to 27 million people facing hunger – a significantly higher number than usual due to the pandemic – and deployed 151 grants totalling almost $12 million to food banks globally. Our donations have helped these providers access the funds, training and resources required to offer basic provisions to society’s most vulnerable, and we’ll continue to help them as part of our Journey to Tomorrow programme.
