I feel worse about this than when Marriott purchased the Ritz-Carlton brand.
Kimpton's brand and service (62 properties) is so consistently great from Seattle to Arizona to Chicago to DC/Virginia - during the same travels it seems clear to me that IHG is consistently mediocre (4,700 properties franchised mostly of which IHG manages about 700).
I was in Atlanta in the '90's when Bass Breweries purchased North American Holiday Inns and sorted through so many mediocre properties only succeeding in 20 years to bringing the brand up to "mediocre" (see 2014 JD Power survey)
http://www.jdpower.com/press-release...on-index-study