Milwaukee, Wis., November 20, 2006…..Marcus Hotels and Resorts, a division of The Marcus Corporation (NYSE: MCS), today announced that it will convert the 220-room Wyndham Milwaukee Center that it acquired last year to the luxury InterContinental brand by January 1, 2007. The reflagged InterContinental Milwaukee will be the city's second luxury hotel and the first internationally branded luxury property.
Located at the corner of Kilbourn and Water Streets in the heart of the city's entertainment district, the hotel has just completed a major refurbishment. “We have created a sophisticated hotel with a unique position in the market and we selected the InterContinental Brand because of its proven track record in delivering a powerful distribution marketing system,” said Bill Otto, president of Marcus Hotels and Resorts. “We completely repositioned the personality of the hotel, from the sense of arrival to the guest rooms, from the meeting space to the upscale food and beverage concepts.”
“This will be the 18th InterContinental hotel in the United States, which puts this hotel in very exclusive company. The brand's global reputation for ‘in the know' service and commitment to quality, coupled with our proprietary management and marketing systems, will differentiate the hotel from all others in the Milwaukee market.”
“The InterContinental Milwaukee is a fantastic and quality addition to our North American InterContinental Brand portfolio and will be the fourth InterContinental to open in the United States in 2006 following Kansas
City, Baltimore and Boston,” said Kirk Kinsell, SVP and chief development officer, InterContinental
Hotels Group, the Americas. “We remain highly selective in choosing operators to manage the InterContinental Brand, and Marcus Hotels and Resorts has a long, proven track record in hotel management excellence. We look forward to the opportunity to expand our relationship with them.”
In upgrading the hotel, the company's food and beverage experts created three one-of-a-kind outlets. “We believe a hotel's food and beverage operations play a major role in establishing a property's identity,” Otto said. “Although just opened, these three facilities are receiving rave reviews from both locals and guests and furthering the notion with the downtown Milwaukee community of being ‘the' place to be.”
The lobby was transformed into a trendy meeting place with the introduction of CLEAR, an upscale lounge that specializes in clear drinks and eclectic food offerings, ranging from fresh sashimi to a trio of Wisconsin butter sliders (the hotel's special take on the classic hamburger). The floor-to-ceiling windows provide passersby and guests with the perfect setting to “see and be seen.”
Kil@wat on the second floor is the hotel's new upscale restaurant and showcases American cuisine. The 95-seat facility features a selection of unique dishes, including lobster pot pie with root vegetables and saffron Pernod sauce, Strauss lamb chops with parsnip puree and cranberries, and sautéed organic salmon with a choice of 12 side dishes, ranging from brussel sprouts with hazel nuts to a trio of mashed potatoes.
Wednesday through Saturday, the city's in-crowd gathers at ZenDen, an exclusive hideaway. The large under-lit alabaster bar area is offset with candles. A resident D.J. discreetly keeps the lounge rocking with energy.
The hotel's 12,000 square feet of completely refurbished meeting space and 2,300 square feet of pre-function space handles groups of up to 575 people or as few as a handful in the hotel's executive board room. All 11 meeting rooms have high speed Internet access, and the hotel provides complete audio-visual support services. The hotel's large guestrooms and bathrooms were completely made over with new case goods and soft goods in a contemporary palette. All the guestrooms will offer high speed Internet access, safes large enough to accommodate laptop computers, and 32-inch LCD or 42-inch plasma screen TVs, depending upon room size. Other amenities include an indoor hot tub, a renovated fitness center and a new business center.
“The InterContinental Milwaukee is designed to meet the needs of locals and business and leisure-travel guests,” Otto noted. “Our meeting facilities will attract small to mid-size groups, for business meetings as well as some of the city's premier social events, such as weddings and charity events.”
About InterContinental Hotels Group
InterContinental Hotels Group PLC of the United Kingdom [LON:IHG, NYSE:IHG (ADRs)] is the world's largest hotel group by number of rooms. InterContinental Hotels Group owns, manages, leases or franchises, through various subsidiaries, over 3,650 hotels and 543,775 guest rooms in nearly 100 countries and territories around the world. The Group owns a portfolio of well recognized and respected hotel brands including InterContinental® Hotels & Resorts, Crowne Plaza® Hotels & Resorts, Holiday Inn® Hotels and Resorts, Holiday Inn Express®, Staybridge Suites®, Candlewood Suites® and Hotel Indigo®, and also manages the world's largest hotel loyalty program, Priority Club® Rewards with over 30 million members worldwide.
InterContinental Hotels Group offers information and online reservations for all its hotel brands at www.ichotelsgroup.com and information for the Priority Club Rewards program at www.priorityclub.com. For the latest news from InterContinental Hotels Group, visit our online Press Office at www.ihgplc.com/media.
About Marcus Hotels and Resorts
Marcus Hotels and Resorts owns or manages a distinctive portfolio of 17 hotels, resorts and other properties across the country, with one additional hotel under development. The company is a third-party manager for nine hotels, resorts and other properties, and owns and operates eight hotels and resorts. Marcus Hotels and Resorts currently is restoring the historic Skirvin Hilton, a public/private historic hotel renovation project in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
About The Marcus Corporation
Headquartered in Milwaukee, Wis., The Marcus Corporation is a leader in the lodging and entertainment industries. In addition to its Marcus Hotels and Resorts division, the company's movie theatre division, Marcus Theatres®, owns or manages 508 screens at 43 locations in Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota and Ohio, and one family entertainment center in Wisconsin. For more information, visit the company's Web site at www.marcuscorp.com.
Certain matters discussed in this press release are “forward-looking statements” intended to qualify for the safe harbors from liability established by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements may generally be identified as such because the context of such statements will include words such as we “believe,” “anticipate,” “expect” or words of similar import. Similarly, statements that describe our future plans, objectives or goals are also forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause results to differ materially from those expected, including, but not limited to, the following: (1) the availability, in terms of both quantity and audience appeal, of motion pictures for our theatre division, as well as other industry dynamics such as the maintenance of a suitable window between the date such motion pictures are released in theatres and the date they are released to other distribution channels; (2) the effects of increasing depreciation expenses and preopening and start-up costs due to the capital intensive nature of our businesses; (3) the effects of adverse economic conditions in our markets, particularly with respect to our hotels and resorts division; (4) the effects of adverse weather conditions, particularly during the winter in the Midwest and in our other markets; (5) the effects on our occupancy and room rates from the relative industry supply of available rooms at comparable lodging facilities in our markets; (6) the effects of competitive conditions in our markets; (7) our ability to identify properties to acquire, develop and/or manage and continuing availability of funds for such development; and (8) the adverse impact on business and consumer spending on travel, leisure and entertainment resulting from terrorist attacks in the United States, the United States' responses thereto and subsequent hostilities. Shareholders, potential investors and other readers are urged to consider these factors carefully in evaluating the forward-looking statements and are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements made herein are made only as of the date of this press release and we undertake no obligation to publicly update such forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances.