Bass Hotels and Resorts has handed its UK consumer PR account for
subsidiary Holiday Inns, previously handled by Shandwick, to BGB and
Associates.
Shandwick had handled the account for 12 years and was not asked to
repitch for the work. BGB won the business without a competitive pitch,
and already handles PR for Intercontinental Hotels and Resorts, which
was bought by Bass earlier this year.
BGB will report to Holiday Inns vice president for corporate marketing,
sales and services, Arie van der Spek. He is based in Brussels, oversees
a team of two PR officers, and is responsible for the Europe, Middle
East and Africa region.
’When we purchased the Intercontinental group we decided to look for
efficiency and synergy, so we decided to have one agency to handle all
the hotels,’ said van der Spek.
BGB handles corporate and consumer PR in the UK and co-ordinates
consumer PR in Europe for Intercontinental.
There are 2,400 Holiday Inn hotels worldwide, 307 of which are in the
the UK. Holiday Inns retains four other agencies in Europe. They are
Herald Communications in France, Publipress in Germany, de Rossi del
Lion Nero e Associati in Italy and Weekenstroo PR in the Netherlands.
