Holiday Inn Redesigns Lobby: Reception, Bar, and F&B in One Area

As it approaches its 75th anniversary in 2027, Holiday Inn is rethinking the classic hotel lobby model. The newly opened Holiday Inn & Suites Commerce City–Denver Airport is the first hotel built from the ground up with the brand's latest lobby concept.

The 106-room property is located less than 10 minutes from Denver International Airport and was developed by Colorado-based NibbleNook Hospitality. However, what makes the opening noteworthy in the industry is not the number of rooms, but how the hotel's public spaces are organized.

In the new model, the reception, food and beverage ordering point, and full-service bar are not positioned as three separate areas, but rather located within the same central operational core. IHG states that this arrangement aims to facilitate the guest journey while creating operational efficiency for hotel owners.

The Lobby is No Longer a Waiting Area

The primary function of the traditional hotel lobby has long been check-in, check-out, and short-term waiting.

In the new generation design, the same square footage serves different revenue and usage scenarios throughout the day. Guests can enjoy morning coffee, work on their laptops in the afternoon, hold small meetings, or order dinner or drinks.

The lobby at Holiday Inn's Commerce City property is organized with this logic. The hotel's corporate page highlights the open lobby, on-site restaurant, and bar as key components of the guest experience.

This same logic is evident in the brand's broader development approach. IHG associates Holiday Inn's Open Lobby concept with flexible restaurant and bar solutions; it aims to create an operational model where F&B areas can generate revenue while supporting multiple tasks for staff.

From this perspective, design is not just an interior architecture issue.

Generating More Revenue from the Same Square Footage

The economic value of the lobby is changing from the perspective of hotel investors.

In the traditional layout, a large reception area may be busy at certain times of the day and underutilized at others. Separate bar, restaurant, and lounge areas also create their own staffing and square footage needs.

Bringing functions closer together can theoretically allow the same public space to achieve a higher utilization rate.

For example, an area selling coffee before breakfast can serve as a meeting point in the afternoon and operate as a bar in the evening. This extends the revenue-generating time of the square footage.

However, the success of this model does not solely depend on bringing furniture closer together.

If a guest is entering the check-in line while ordering at the bar, or if the reception staff is facing too many different requests at once, the efficiency intended by the design can be reversed.

The Multi-Tasking Employee Model Increases Training Needs

IHG defines the service structure in the Holiday Inn development model, where employees can support multiple roles, as one of the components of operational efficiency.

This approach can create advantages in managing labor costs, especially for limited-service or upper-midscale hotels.

However, being multi-tasked should not mean overloading the same employee with more work without training.

The reception staff needs to understand basic F&B processes, while the bar and restaurant teams must comprehend guest direction, and payment systems must work correctly across different revenue centers.

In markets where alcohol service is present, training may also be required to comply with local licensing and service regulations.

Therefore, open lobby design is not an architectural solution that automatically reduces the number of employees. Rather, it is a system that allows a well-trained team to be utilized more flexibly across different operational points.

F&B Moves to the Center of the Lobby Experience

The Mile High Landing restaurant at the Commerce City hotel serves dinner, while the lobby bar is used throughout the day for food, drinks, and workspaces. The hotel also offers an enhanced buffet breakfast.

This structure indicates a shift away from the understanding of hotel F&B as a "separate restaurant department."

Especially in airport and business hotels, guests may not want to receive long service in an independent restaurant for every meal. Quick coffee, short meetings, single-plate meals, or pre-flight drinks may be more important usage moments.

When the lobby bar can meet these demands, F&B becomes a product that prevents hotel guests from going outside and can increase total guest spending.

The Open Lobby approach is also demonstrated at IHG's Holiday Inn Old City property in Istanbul, where it is used as a single area for eating, drinking, working, and socializing, showing that the model is not exclusive to the U.S. market.

Flexible Spaces Also Impact Meeting Business

The multi-purpose areas in the new Commerce City lobby are not only for individual guests.

IHG showcases flexible spaces, happy hour options, and special catering menus as part of the concept for meeting and group clients.

This approach can create an alternative to the classic meeting room, especially for small corporate meetings.

Instead of preparing a separate room for a four-person team, a semi-private section in the lobby can be used. This allows the hotel to sell F&B to meeting clients at a lower operational cost.

In return, acoustic and privacy issues must be well addressed. "Flexible space" does not mean that every usage will work smoothly at the same time.

Usage Areas in Rooms are Also Being Separated

The new design concept is not limited to the lobby.

According to IHG's statement, different usage areas for work, relaxation, and sleep have been created in the rooms. Dedicated workspaces, seating areas, blackout curtains, and the brand's bed system are among the new product's components.

This is related to a broader behavioral change in hotel design.

The convergence of business and leisure travel leads to guests working on laptops expecting ergonomic and technological infrastructure in both the room and the lobby.

Thus, the hotel is moving away from being merely a "sleeping room + reception" product.

Why is Holiday Inn Updating Its Design?

Holiday Inn will celebrate its 75th anniversary in 2027. According to IHG's official statement, the brand has over 1,200 open hotels worldwide and more than 300 properties in the development pipeline. After Commerce City, the next property expected to adopt the new lobby concept is Holiday Inn Fort Worth–Fossil Creek.

This scale makes the design update significant.

A new concept in large chains does not only create aesthetic changes in a single hotel. If found successful, it can spread to hundreds of new constructions and renovation projects, affecting furniture, F&B equipment, employee training, and investment costs.

Therefore, the brand's new lobby prototype also serves as an operational template for investors.

Stafflink's Opinion

In our view, the strongest aspect of Holiday Inn's new lobby model is its focus on square footage efficiency rather than decoration.

Hotel lobbies are expensive areas. Nevertheless, in many properties, they are used for a large part of the day without generating economic value.

Smarter integration of reception, bar, work area, and F&B can transform this space into a revenue-generating operational center.

However, the success of the design will be tested on the employee side.

Making a space multi-functional is easy; ensuring that the team manages simultaneous check-in, coffee, meal, and bar requests without lowering service standards is more challenging.

Investors planning new hotels or renovations in Turkey should not evaluate the lobby merely as "the impressive area the guest sees first." A more useful question might be:

How many hours a day does every 10 square meters of the lobby provide value to guests and generate income for the business?

This question can bring design, F&B, and labor decisions to the same table.