AAHOA Lifetime Member and franchisee, Vimal Patel, says his Holiday Inn Express hotels in LaPlace, LA and Donaldsonville, LA experienced significant disruptions last week. InterContinental Hotels Group, which owns Holiday Inn as well as 15 other brands, including Crowne Plaza, said in a recent statement that “parts of its technology systems have been subject to unauthorized activity. [The company] has implemented its response plans and notified relevant regulatory authorities.” As a result of the data breach, Patel said his hotels operated at less than 50% occupancy last week, estimating they would be at around 75% if the IHG national reservation system was not compromised. Although his hotel business lost millions of dollars worth of revenue due to the cyberattacks, Patel explained that the biggest challenge was helping frustrated guests and searching for lost reservations. At this time, it is unclear if any personal data was stolen, or who was behind the breach, but IHG sent an update to customers, notifying them it is monitoring the situation closely, supporting owners and operators, and working toward restoring impacted systems. For more information, see this Hotel & Owner Q&A sheet as well as this communication from IHG CEO Keith Barr.
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