By Greg Hazley
InterContinental Hotels Group, the publicly traded, London-based hotelier, is reaching out to media to stress that it does not own the Hotel Inter-Continental Kabul which came under brazen attack on Tuesday.
IHG, which owns 4,400 hotels in 100 countries, gave up the 42-year-old Afghanistan property in 1980 in the wake of the Soviet Union’s invasion of the country. Its current owners are not listed on its website.
Leslie McGibbon, VP of corporate communications, and Kari Kerr, global external communications director, issued an expanded statement a day after the June 28 attack, asking press to note IHG does not own the property.
“Following extensive media coverage, InterContinental Hotels Group would like to confirm that the hotel Inter-continental in Kabul is not part of IHG and has not been since 1980,” said the statement.” In light of this fact, we respectfully request that future reports, where possible, make this clear. Our thoughts at this time are with all of the people affected by this tragedy.
That came a day after a shorter statement to confirm IHG is not the owner and noting a high number of media requests. Its share price was unaffected by the incident.
Weber Shandwick (U.S.) and Hill & Knowlton (U.K.) are among IHG’s PR firms.
Armed gunmen and suicide bombers passed through several layers of security June 28 at the Kabul hotel opening fire and detonating a bomb before NATO forces ended a standoff hours later.
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