(Corrected on Sept. 15 to remove a reference to Canj as Montenegro's capital and clarify some recent and future IHG openings in Armenia, France and Spain.)

Global hotel franchise company IHG Hotels & Resorts is busy signing hotels across Europe, and quite a number of those markets are debut destinations in fringe or outlying countries and locations.

Willemijn Geels is IHG's vice president of development, Europe, a role she earned via promotion in March 2019. In an interview with Hotel News Now, Geels said that her team and others at IHG have been very busy during the last two turbulent years for the hotel industry.

“We have not sat still. Our operations teams have worked with owners, supporting them, lobbying with governments, working with franchisees, so as to give them the latest information and be better-equipped. The outlook definitely appears better at the moment,” she said.

The strong investor sentiment Geels has seen strengthens the robust business fundamentals that hotel brand executives maintained have existed throughout the pandemic.

“Deals have not stopped, and very few have fallen off the radar. Yes, permitting has been delayed a little, but few have disappeared,” she said.

Despite strong interest and pipeline, an absence of bank financing is the main frustration for delaying signings, Geels said.

“There are [financing] alternatives, but that takes longer to get projects together, but, overall, despite having lived for a while in the world of virtual signings, we are signing deals,” she added.

The United Kingdom-based firm’s medium- and long-term strategies have not changed, Geels said.

“In Europe, our brand portfolio has a great selection. All our brands play in distinct segments,” she said.

She added IHG's luxury and leisure brands, not just resorts, have been the key drivers of demand. In late August, IHG unveiled a new conversion brand, Vignette Collection.

“The InterContinental and Kimpton brands have a lot of traction,” she said, pointing to the Aug. 23 opening of the 149-room Kimpton St. Honoré Paris, the brand's French debut.

Geels said she and her team are seeing owners diversify away from core brands and markets, either because already they have assets in a country's primary cities or because they are seeing guests change booking habits.

“Diversity is a good thing," she said. "There is lots of private equity money coming into the picture, as well as a lot more owner-operators.

“Perhaps to the certain disappointment of some, distress has not happened. The fundamentals are strong, [average daily rate] will come back, there is plenty of capital and transactional pricing is still high.”

Europe’s more mature markets, such as the France, Germany and the United Kingdom, are seeing volume grow with IHG's newer brands, and that leaves the opportunity for owners to add traditional brands to more obscure destinations.

“We have a strong base in the top 10 markets, and we have local offices there and management clusters, which makes it easy to diversify into smaller markets via a hubs-and-spokes policy. These markets are maturing quickly, and the owners are professional owners,” she said.

In France and Germany, brands such as Holiday Inn Express, Hotel Indigo and Voco are seeking out secondary, even tertiary locations.

“There are many such places that are looking for a brand with a flexible, boutique style that are absolutely fit for 70 to 80 rooms, in such places as Aix-en-Provence [France] that has a yearlong season,” Geels added.

IHG's recent signings and openings throughout Europe point to less-known destinations. In July, IHG announced the InterContinental Resort Amma, Canj — Montenegro, which will open in Canj in late 2023. The property joins the Regent Porto Montenegro, which became a part of IHG's brand family when the company acquired a majority stake in Regent Hotels & Resorts in 2018.

“It is built on the relationship regarding a sale in another country, a hotel we manage," Geels said. "The owner there recommended a partner for the second of our hotels at Porto Montenegro, and that is how it grows, to a third and fourth signing and on."

The resort's owner — Montenegro-based Čelebić Group — also owns the 81-room Voco Podgorica that opened in 2020 and 198-room Holiday Inn Express Podgorica that is to open by the end of this year.

Geels said Čelebić Group was interested in working with IHG based on a good reputation among other European hotel owners.

“That makes us confident to go into a secondary city first," she said. "Yes, that might be considered a bold move, but it can be the capital that decides that. It is the right project, a mixed-use development, that will allow us to step into a new country and to other deals, especially in a relatively small country."

The company also recently opened the 128-room InterContinental Hotel Baku in the Azerbaijani capital. In June, the company announced it will open the 140-room Crowne Plaza Durrës, Albania in 2024. That hotel — a country debut for the Crowne Plaza brand — is owned by Mediterranean Investment Group and will be built in Albania’s second city, Durrës, which is on the coast.

Geels said Albania is one market increasingly seeing foreign investment, largely out of the Middle East.

In May, the Holiday Inn brand debuted in Armenia's capital with the 191-room Holiday Inn Yerevan-Republic Square, owned by SGI Direct, and in March 2023 IHG will open the 71-room Holiday Inn Express Ajaccio on the French island of Corsica.

IHG’s Six Senses brand opened assets this year in Ibiza and Israel’s Negev Desert

Turkey is one market where IHG now has scale, with some 30 hotels that span its brand selection, Geels said.