InterContental Hotels Group advanced plans earlier this month tobuild 52 new Holiday Inns throughout Canada, most of which will beflagged as the less-elaborate Holiday Inn Express. IHG now claimsthe largest hotel pipeline of all midscale brands in Canada.

Already having had a presence for the past half-century, HolidayInn already has 64 full-scale hotel and resort locations throughoutCanada, totaling 11,666 rooms, plus 50 Holiday Inn Express hotelstotaling 5,071 rooms. Future locations will include major citiesincluding Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto and Montreal, as well assecondary markets such as Slave Lake, Alberta; Prince Albert,Saskatchewan; and Stellarton and Truro, Nova Scotia.

The biggest preferences to location can be summed up in a singlethree-letter word: oil. Alberta and Saskatchewan are benefitingfrom record-setting prices, making those provinces somewhat moreattractive for hotel development than any of the lower 48 states,according to Gopal Rao, VP of sales and marketing for IHG inCanada.