Holiday Inn is celebrating its 20 years of hospitality success in China with a novel new promotion for guests.

Research shows that guests look for new experiences when they travel on business and derive comfort from environments that are unrestricted and allow them to be themselves. Holiday Inn is giving three pairs of lucky guests the ultimate freedom to be themselves, free even from gravity, with the Holiday Inn Space Promotion, which was inspired by the successful launch of Shenzhou V and China's first astronaut, Yang Liwei. The winners of the Holiday Inn Space Promotion get a free roundtrip to Moscow, a two-night stay in Holiday Inn Moscow, a visit to a leading astronaut training centre in Moscow and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to undergo zero-gravity astronaut training and to experience the weightlessness of floating in space. The prize includes the astronaut training centre fees.

Said InterContinental Hotels Group Managing Director, Asia Pacific, Mr. A. Patrick Imbardelli, In the past 20 years, the Holiday Inn brand has grown in tandem with China's progress. Today, As China explores the new space frontier, we would like to show our support by sending our Chinese guests to experience what it is like to be in space! This Holiday Inn space promotion is a great platform to demonstrate Holiday Inn's innovativeness and its Can Do spirit.

Pictured from left to right are Andrew Guo, Marketing Manager, IHG China; Patrick Imbardelli, Managing Director, IHG Asia Pacific; and Allan Yip, Director, Brand Management, Asia Pacific.

The Group was one of the pioneer international hotel companies in China when it opened its first hotel, the Holiday Inn Lido, in Beijing in 1984.  It was also the first to launch a Chinese language website and the first to offer online reservations options to customers who do not use credit cards. And since 1984, InterContinental Hotels Group, the world's most global hotel company, has expanded its distribution in China to 45 hotels.

From left to right, Patrick Imbardelli, Edmond Ip, Chief Operating Officer, North Asia, and Allan Yip.

To thank customers for their loyalty and continued support all these years, Holiday Inn will pick one lucky winner each month, from June to August 2004. The lucky winner whose name is drawn wins a Holiday Inn Space Promotion trip for two. Guests of Chinese nationality, who stay a minimum of two consecutive nights at any of the Holiday Inn hotels in Mainland China, Hong Kong or Macau, are entitled to a lucky draw chance.