New wellness hotel for Auckland

InterContinental Hotels Group’s (IHG) wellness lifestyle brand Even is to be launched in Auckland in 2020, with a 200-room, 37-level hotel on part of the old New Zealand Herald site in the CBD.

This follows the signing of a partnership with financial specialist Pro-Invest Group for Australasia that will mean the brand’s debut for the first time outside the US. The Auckland project will also include a Holiday Inn.  

The partnership is aiming at a 10-15 hotel portfolio of Even Hotels, providing a holistic wellness experience, across capital cities in Australia and New Zealand and is actively looking for sites.

IHG says health and wellness is one of the fastest-growing industries in Australasia, making it the perfect place to grow the brand. The hotels are designed to help travellers “eat well, rest easy, keep active and accomplish more, making it ideal to better serve wellness-minded travellers.”

IHG has 32 hotels in New Zealand and Australia under the InterContinental, Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Resorts brands. 

The launch of the Even Hotels brand in Australia and New Zealand comes at a great time and is a strong fit to local consumer tastes and trends, IHG says.

The group is continuing its expansion in bringing new brands to this market and has established a strong hotel franchising model to provide owners and investors in Australasia, such as Pro-invest, with a reliable and profitable alternative to its management model, it says.

Pro-invest Group’s chief executive, Ronald Barrott says there is considerable growth in lifestyle services in both health and wellness and exercise.  He says the growth reflects the importance Australasians place on personal health and wellbeing, making it the best time to launch Even Hotels.