Continental Hotel Belgrade
| Crowne Plaza Belgrade | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Former names | Hotel Beograd InterContinental (1979-2006) Hotel International CG (2006-2007) Continental Hotel Belgrade (2007-2012) |
| Hotel chain | Crowne Plaza |
| General information | |
| Location | Novi Beograd, Serbia |
| Address | Vladimira Popovića Street 10 Belgrade 11000 |
| Opening | October 1979 |
| Renovated | 2003, 2012-2013 |
| Owner | Miroslav Mišković |
| Management | Delta Holding |
| Design and construction | |
| Architect | Stojan Maksimović |
| Other information | |
| Number of rooms | 387 |
| Number of suites | 29 |
| Number of restaurants | 2 |
Crowne Plaza Belgrade is a four-star hotel located in the Belgrade municipality of Novi Beograd, Serbia. With its 387 rooms and 29 suites, it holds the distinction of being the biggest hotel in the city in terms of capacity.
Opened in 1979 after getting built with state funds provided through Genex foreign trade company led at the time by the state-appointed CEO Miodrag "Miki" Savićević, the hotel originally operated as Hotel Beograd InterContinental, part of the InterContinental chain.
As Genex fell on hard times throughout the 1990s and especially in the 2000s, it failed to honour the hotel's franchising terms, which led to the loss of the franchising license in 2006.
Afterwards, the hotel re-branded as Hotel International CG for a brief period followed by Continental Hotel Belgrade, in both instances without a foreign brand affiliation, before getting sold to Miroslav Mišković's Delta Holding conglomerate in 2008. Mišković kept the existing setup until striking a deal with InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) about using their Crowne Plaza brand. The hotel closed in July 2012 to undergo a major reconstruction effort before re-opening as Crowne Plaza in December 2013.
Crowne Plaza is located in Novi Beograd on the Sava river left bank.
Venues and sites of interest located in its immediate vicinity are the Sava Centar congress hall, Kombank Arena, Ušće Tower, and Gazela Bridge.
Built in record time by Trudbenik construction firm in cooperation with 50 other business entities that participated as subcontractors from 1976 to 1978,Hotel Beograd InterContinental opened in October 1979 under the InterContinental chain as a next-door companion to the simultaneously-built Sava Centar congress hall and convention center. The two buildings are connected by the pedestrian passage (pasarela). The architect, Stojan Maksimović, with his associates, was awarded the October award for architecture in 1977, the highest city award at that time. Financed by the state-owned Generaleksport foreign trade company, better known as Genex, the entire construction project turned into a race against time in order to meet the deadlines imposed due to the previously scheduled International Monetary Fund (IMF) and International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) annual fall 1979 meeting. By the time the construction phase began, franchising rights were already agreed between Genex and InterContinental, representing the famous chain's entry into the market of communist Yugoslavia as one of the first Western franchises in the country that was experiencing growing tourism from the West. At the time, the Belgrade location was InterContinental's 81st hotel worldwide. In the courtyard of this hotel there was the dandelion fountain.
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