InterContinental Hotels Group , the world's top hotelier, signed a joint venture partnership with Duet India Hotels Group to develop its Holiday Inn Express brand in the Indian market. InterContinental will make a multi-year investment of $30 million in the joint venture, in which it would have a 24 percent equity stake, to develop 19 new Holiday Inn Express hotels across India. This will add about 3,300 rooms to the company's current Indian development pipeline of over 10,000 rooms, which are expected to be operational by 2016, the company said in a statement. "IHG is strongly positioned to build a significant India footprint with a growing presence in India's key business and leisure hubs, " said Jan Smits, chief executive officer of IHG Asia Australasia. "Overall, we are on track to have a 150-hotel presence by 2020."
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