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Nearly 1,000 new hotel rooms and suites are set to be made available in South Korea as the result of an agreement between the InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) and Gwangwondo Development Corporation.

IHG will operate new resorts and suites under the InterContinental and Holiday Inn brands in a move that doubles its number of hotels in the region.

The development will be based in the Pyeong Chang district of Gangwon-do province – a well-established ski destination – and comprise three separate areas: the golf and villa zone, the resort village zone and the winter sports zone.

While the location is currently two and a half hours' drive east of Seoul and the international airports of Incheon and Gimpo, this journey will be cut to one and a half hours when a new expressway is completed in 2009.

Jan Smits of IHG Asia-Pacific said: 'Our brands are expanding rapidly in Asia Pacific and globally.

'This growth is reflected here in South Korea where we have been successfully operating for more than 20 years. The signing of these three entities in a single deal is another evidence of that growth and the confidence in South Korea.'

In 2007, South Korea welcomed some 6.4m foreign tourists, more than a third of whom came from Japan.

The new InterContinental developments in the country are set to be completed by the second quarter of 2009.

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