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Golden Holiday Inn an award winner

Golden's newest hotel, the Holiday Inn Express Golden-Kicking Horse, has been getting some attention for its attractive design.
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Golden’s new Holiday Inn Express has received two awards for its design from the Southern Interior Construction Association and the Intercontinental Hotels Group.

Golden's newest hotel, the Holiday Inn Express Golden-Kicking Horse, has been getting some attention for its attractive design.

The Sandher family has received two prestigious awards for the construction of the new building.

"We chose the design, and we visited a lot of buildings and got a lot of input as well," said Atma Sanher, who involved in the process with his sons Surj and Harj. It was Harj who took the lead during much of the construction phase and is now running the hotel.

And it was that design that won them recognition from both the Southern Interior Construction Association Commercial Building Awards (Award of Excellence in Hospitality category) and the Intercontinental Hotels Group (2014 New Development Design Award).

And even though the Holiday Inn had to approve the design, they fought for what was important to them, and are very happy with the results.

"It was the design of the outside, and the interior of the building… the colours and facade, that sort of thing," said Surj. "The ideas came from a lot of different places…We wanted to incorporated Golden's culture as much as possible. We even fought for the name, Holiday Inn Express Golden-Kicking Horse."

Some of the reps up the food chain at Holiday Inn weren't too keen about including Kicking Horse in the name of the hotel. So the Sandher family brought them to Golden to show them why it was so important, and how much the mountain culture impacts the community.

“Everything has been  very positive since the hotel opened. There’s always growing pains obviously...It was a long process, and we’re now very comfortable with how things are running,” said Surj.