Holiday Inn Express is a Finalist for Best Budget Hotel Brand at the
2026 Travelling for Business Awards, and its scale alone commands respect: with thousands of hotels across the world, IHG's select-service champion is among the most numerous hotel brands in existence — and, more remarkably, among the most consistent. The green-and-white sign promises the same efficient equation on any continent: an uncomplicated room, a power shower, fast Wi-Fi and breakfast included, engineered for the traveller who wants everything necessary and nothing performative. The formula has outlasted every fashion the industry has thrown at it.
The brand refuses to stand still. Its next-generation design, unveiled as
the 5.0 "Dawn" prototype, rethinks the entire stay around flexibility — lobbies that flow from coffee to cocktails, rooms tuned for both the laptop and the pillow — and the rollout will refresh one of travel's most familiar products for its next decade. The personality shows too: a
limited-edition scent-powered alarm clock, waking guests with the smell of breakfast, was the kind of playful stunt only a brand secure in its identity attempts — and it made the point that the included breakfast remains sacred. It is a small institution in its own right — unlimited, unfussy and priced into the rate, the daily proof of the brand's bargain.
Expansion runs at a pace rivals struggle to read, let alone match. New signings stretch from Western Australia to India's fastest-industrialising corridors, keeping the brand present precisely where new business travel is being created, while the established UK and European network — ring roads, airports, exhibition quarters — remains the quiet backbone of countless corporate travel programmes. IHG One Rewards and mature corporate-booking tools complete a package procurement teams can deploy globally with one signature. The UK estate alone would justify the nomination, spanning the country's motorway network, regional airports and conference cities with the density corporate route-planners need, while refurbishment keeps older properties aligned with the newest.
The nomination recognises the discipline of doing the essentials brilliantly, at almost unimaginable scale, for decades. Budget travel has many contenders; very few have made simplicity itself the luxury.
Winners will be announced at the 2026 Travelling for Business Awards, and the Express breakfast will be served at full strength either way.
