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Hotel Indigo Opens in London and More To Come

It appears that InterContinental's hip, boutiquey Hotel Indigo brand has major expansion plans. If you'll recall, Indigo is IHG's answer to Starwood's W Hotels and the precursor to all the lifestyle boutique brands popping up today like Aloft,Element, Hyatt's Andaz and NYLO. IHG opened its first property in 2006 and since then it has been targeting the younger business traveler in U.S. locations from Scottsdale to NYC.

And now they've landed overseas: ABTN reports the opening of the first Indigo in Europe, the Hotel Indigo London - Pattington, and they've got an big plans to spread outside North America quickly. Per ABTN:

At the opening of the 64-room hotel in the west London district of Paddington, Andrew Cosslett, IHG's ceo, announced that contracts for three more Indigos in the UK had also been signed. All will be based in London and are due to open by 2012.

Contracts for a 180-room Indigo in Shanghai had also been signed and this hotel is due to open in 2010.

While we're well-aware this trend of opening hotels geared toward younger travelers is still on the upswing, we can't help but wonder when all this development is going to calm down — especially given the amount of delays and suspended hotel projects lately. Also, Indigo is all about incorporating local flavor into each hotel — we're interested to see how they can pull that off as the chain gets bigger and bigger.