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Behold: The Biggest Holiday Inn Express Room We've Ever Seen

Where: 629 Euclid Avenue [map], Cleveland, OH, United States, 44114

This just in, dispatched from a tipster road warrior who is currently traveling across the country visiting different baseball stadiums (how cool is that?): there appears to be a Holiday Inn Express in Cleveland, Ohio with absolutely ridiculously large rooms. The Holiday Inn Express Downtown Cleveland, specifically.

He sends this snapshot over to us, along with this description:

So far, I've talked to four different employees and all have been fantastic — friendly and polite. The room itself definitely seems like a value, given the square footage (or, more accurately, the cubic footage, given the super-high ceiling) and the fixtures. I'm normally a no-frills traveler, but I do enjoy feeling like I'm in a nice place as opposed to a run-down motel.

This bad boy goes for exactly $125.34 this evening, and we're totally impressed with space and the hardwood floors. There's also a desk that wouldn't fit into the frame here. Apparently, the hotel is actually inside a 19th century historic Guardian Bank Building and was renovated in 2004.

Another pleasant surprise from the budget chain that seems to be turnin' heads this year.

[Photo: T.J. Ryan]

Tags: Geek Hotels / Dubai Hotels / Hotel WiFi / Holiday Inn Express / → All Tags

Begin Your Download at Holiday Inn Express Internet City

Where: Tecom Zone, Knowledge City, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

When we discovered there was a Holiday Inn Express Dubai Internet City, we thought the hotel chain was just using a clever gimmick to draw in guests. But no, there actually is a real place called Dubai Internet City. According to its website:

Dubai Internet City is a strategic base for companies targeting emerging markets in a vast region extending from the Middle East to the Indian subcontinent, and Africa to the CIS countries, covering 2 billion people with GDP $ 6.7 trillion.

Ok, so that's a little too much business and geek-speak for us to understand but naturally all these companies heading to Dubai Internet City are going to need a place to stay. In comes the Holiday Inn Express.

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Holiday Inn Cleans Up Image by...Rapping?

Where: United States

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.

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Holiday Inn Express Helps Out With Hull Dialect

Where: 80 Ferensway, Kingston Upon Hull, United Kingdom, HU2 8LN

Up in northern England in the town of Hull, some of the locals speak with a dialect that's a bit hard to understand. But don't let that stop you visiting--the Holiday Inn Express Hull has produced a handy English-to-Hull translation guide so you'll be able to get what you're after.

The current manager is Dutch and had a few problems of his own understanding the local lingo when he first arrived. Now he knows that an arfa larga is a half glass of beer, that bains are children and if someone shouts Gerrof! at you they want you to leave them alone.

Some of the locals are upset about the guide but we can definitely see the usefulness--we've been making such guides ourselves, like the Uganda hotel vocab lesson--that of the sleeping beer. Thumbs up to Hull for contributing to the linguistic wellbeing of hotel guests.

[Photo of "nowtinnit" (empty) room: robinhood_x]

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Are TV Hotel Ads Totally Obsolete?

MSNBC Travel columnist Amy Bradley-Hole published a super-interesting piece on hotel advertising called "Why Hotels Should Shutter Ad Campaigns." Essentially, she argues that hotel ads are outdated and sort of worthless these days.

To some extent, we agree with her: many of the ads for the big-chain hotels on TV are kind of lame (alright, outrageously lame) and follow the pretty people/fluffy beds formula (example: Hampton Inn).

But on the other hand, it might be unfair to say that all hotel ad campaigns are outdated.

A couple of the points that really stuck out to us:

Business travelers are told where to stay. Companies have always made "bulk" contracts with hotels -- the more rooms a company books a year, the cheaper the rate.

We say: true! It's tough for Joe Employee to choose where he gets to crash on business trips.

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Tags: Holiday Inn Express / Holiday Inns / Hotel Ads / → All Tags

Four Guys Walk into a Holiday Inn Express Breakfast Bar

A recent column by Slate magazine advertising critic Seth Stevenson offers critique of the newly-launched TV advertising campaign from Holiday Inn Express and the brand's new "hot breakfast bar" initiative.

In the TV ads viewers get to feast their eyes on the chain's new breakfast bar offerings, as a group of male hotel guests feast their eyes on an attractive young woman across the dining room.

Hoping to win her favor, the group opts to buy Ms. Pretty Young Thing a complimentary breakfast food item and begin to argue about which item she would prefer.

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