The Holiday Inn chain of hotels hasn't always been known for bonuses like a complimentary hot breakfast bar and occasionally clean pools; no, they used to be real dens of iniquity, serving almost as petri dishes for staph bacteria.

The heyday of their seedy reputation came in the late 1990s, when the term "Holiday Inn" was slang, referring to any cheap motel for unsavory activities regardless of hotel brand. Mentions in popular rap songs, including "Rapper's Delight" by the Sugarhill Gang and the more recent "Holiday Inn" by Chingy, dug a deeper hole for the hotel chain and their image dropped to an almost unsalvageable low.
]]> JetSetCD 2008-10-24T13:07:52-05:00 http://www.hotelchatter.com/story/2008/9/11/85641/2027 <![CDATA[<p><i>You know the scene. You open the door to your brand new hotel room, run over to the window, open the blinds and bam, you are hit with the anti-view. Maybe you are looking down a dirty alley, witnessing a drug deal, staring at an air shaft in the face, or seeing a brick wall. Whatever you are viewing it is not extremely pleasurable. Help out your fellow hotel mavens by uploading your anti-views to the <a href="http://flickr.com/groups/hotelchatter/">HotelChatter/Flickr photo pool</a>, or by <a href="mailto:tips@hotelchatter.com">sending the photo along to us</a>. Remember to tell us the name of the hotel and the room number with the not-so-easy-on-the-eyes view.</i><p><p> <img src="http://www.hotelchatter.com/files/3873/AntiView_Holiday_Inn_Markham.jpg" class="imgborder"><p> <p>When the hotel's own publicity chooses the opening words of its amandak 2008-09-11T10:35:25-05:00 http://www.hotelchatter.com/story/2008/8/5/192937/8629 If you're a fervent hotel loyalty program member then you might be familiar with the term Mattress Runner.

These are people who just book hotel rooms to garner a certain amount of points that will either take them to the next loyalty echelon (gold, platinum, etc.) or earn them a free stay.

So the question for Mattress Runners is: What would you put up with for 50,000 points?

We have a first-hand experience of one guest who had much to complain about at a Holiday Inn near the Atlanta airport. Yet it turns out, all that grief made him loaded in Priority Club points. Mattress runners take note.

The full story is after the jump.]]> travelingmcmahans 2008-08-19T12:38:49-05:00 http://www.hotelchatter.com/story/2008/7/28/368/94060 <![CDATA[<p><img src="http://www.hotelchatter.com/files/1425/hichelsea_ext.jpg" class="imgborder"> <p>Last week, we had the chance to stay overnight in the brand new <b><a href="http://www.hotelchatter.com/hotel-reviews/Holiday+Inn+Manhattan+6th+Ave./ian/266211">Holiday Inn Manhattan 6th Avenue</a></b>, one of the first HI properties to sport the brand's more upscale look, which includes the upgraded <a href="http://www.hotelchatter.com/story/2008/6/24/17185/8537/hotels/Who_Knew_Holiday_Inn_Looking_Good_These_Days">logo </a>and all sorts of the new, <a href="http://www.hotelchatter.com/story/2008/6/24/17185/8537/hotels/Who_Knew_Holiday_Inn_Looking_Good_These_Days">chic decor</a> planned to hit all Holiday Inns by the end of 2010. <p>And while we admit that the hotel did <i>look </i>pretty sexy (especially, you know, for a Holiday Inn) we couldn't help but notice that it would have been a terrible hotel for having good old fashioned sexytime -- and sorry, Spitzerface and Edwards: secret affairs here would be totally out of the question. <p>The reasons why (and a full Jenna 2008-07-28T09:30:24-05:00 http://www.hotelchatter.com/story/2008/7/10/95150/7679

New hotel technology has gotta start somewhere and down in Australia, the University of Queensland's School of Tourism has been trying to get students to have some brainwaves for the future.

When we first heard about this idea we figured that a bunch of students who've only ever stayed in youth hostels might not have many brilliant ideas for the future of hotels, but the results were better than we'd expected.