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Downtown Rochester Hotel Gets New Name & A Makeover

Randy Gorbman
/
WXXI News

A well-known downtown Rochester hotel is celebrating its new name. Officials on Friday dedicated the change of the Rochester Plaza Hotel to its new branding, as the Holiday Inn Rochester Downtown.

Paul Kremp is the general manager there. He says one reason the owners wanted to affiliate with Holiday Inn is the potential for attracting more business customers.

“We believe that their business travel rewards program, called IHG Rewards, that’s one of the items and one of the programs that we felt we missed, being an independent.”

As part of that change, the New Jersey-based owners of the hotel on State Street also put in $5 million worth of improvements.

The hotel is also cutting down on the number of rooms it uses, which Kremp says will make it a more efficient operation.

Don Jeffries, who heads up the tourism group Visit Rochester, says improvements to the hotels in the area have helped boost business.

“All the downtown hotels have upgraded, we’ve made some great strides in getting a lot of the meeting planners to think about Rochester for their association meetings or their group meeting, so it’s good. It’s good when you have a good product to show, ” Jeffries told WXXI News.

Randy Gorbman is WXXI's director of news and public affairs. Randy manages the day-to-day operations of WXXI News on radio, television, and online.