The first thing you will likely read about Holiday Inn Brno, Czech Republic is the location is not in the tourist area of Brno. This is a business hotel with a perfect location for the Brno Trade Exhibition Halls in the southwest portion of city center. If you are in Brno for a trade show, then the Holiday Inn is a great location. If you are in Brno as a tourist without a car, then the Holiday Inn is not in the city center. There is public bus service to city center and the hotel runs an evening shuttle from 6:30 to 10:30pm on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.
Holiday Inn Brno, Czech Republic
I mostly walked everywhere in the city for three days to and from the hotel.
The walk to Mendlovo namesti is about 15 minutes for a city square transportation hub in this part of the city. Albert market is there too for food and beer.
Mendlovo namesti with view to Hrad Spilberk
From Mendlovo Square, you are another 15 minutes walk to the city center squares or a five minute tram ride. The photo above is taken at Mendlovo namesti and shows Hrad Spilberk and the hill separating this section of Brno from the main city center to the right and on the other side of the hill.
The photo below shows the southwest part of Brno around the Exhibition Center as seen from Hrad Spilberk.
Southwest city center Brno is primarily residential. I placed a small red arrow in the upper right of the photo showing location of Holiday Inn Brno. The six floor hotel is behind the apartment building and across the street from the tall building to the left of the arrow, another hotel. The Brno exhibition center in right background of photo, in front of the forested hills. Mendlovo Square is seen in photo foreground, where there is an oval shape road to left of St. Thomas’s Church.
Holiday Inn Brno Hotel Lobby
I actually never snapped any lobby photos during four nights at the hotel. The lobby was nearly always empty, except for employees. The lobby is spacious with a bar to the right and a restaurant to the left. This business hotel was mostly vacant during my stay, perhaps a dozen room lights on at night. I saw only around 10 to 15 guests during three days at the hotel, until my last night when it looked like trade show guests were arriving.
You can take a 360-degree tour of the lobby on the Holiday Inn Brno website. I was given a free beer voucher as an IHG Platinum elite and I drank one beer in the bar. Nice environment, only a few business men in conversations. I tucked away in the library section in the back.
I never saw anyone eating at the hotel restaurant. The price of breakfast buffet looked very high, perhaps 400 CZK ($17 USD). Dinner prices looked reasonable on the advertised specials in the elevator at about 3 to 10 EUR.
Hotel Room
The receptionist said I was upgraded to an Executive Room on the 5th floor.
  
  
  
Notable aspects of the room:
- mini-bar secured with plastic. I never opened it to break the seal.
- large bath towels
- scale in bathroom. The tare weight was 12.4 kg and made me feel exceptionally heavy during my stay.
- TV had multiple channels in English, French, Italian, German and Czech. I watched the Syrian refugee crisis TV live coverage from many nations across Europe.
- Ice machine down the hall dispensed plenty of indispensable ice cubes to chill my room temperature bottles of beer.
Room View
The best part of the room view was only forest covered hills were seen from the bed with soft orange lights at night.
  
Holiday Inn Brno 6th Floor Fitness Center and Spa
The elevator only goes as high as the 5th floor. Stairs to the 6th floor open up to the fitness center, Spa and an outdoor spa tub.
  
  
Brno Exhibition Center and hotel neighborhood
Brno’s location in central Europe led to its development as a gathering place since 1253. The city is nicknamed the ‘capital of trade fairs’. The Brno exhibition center today is a complex of 15 halls in a gated area with a capacity of 20,000 to 25,000 visitors, and double that if needed.
The importance of the exhibition center is relevant in that this hotel was mostly empty during the first three nights I was there. On a Tuesday the guests started arriving for a weekend trade fair. I left Wednesday morning.
This is the Brno Exhibition Center sign showing the 57th International Engineering Fair is September 14-18, 2015. Holiday Inn Brno is about 50 meters behind me from where this photo was taken on September 8.
Brno Exhibition Center
Pivovar Starobrno
Starobrno Brewery at Mendlovo Square is a large and historic brewery in Brno, now owned by Heineken. Beer has been made here beside the old Brno church for 800 years.
Unlike most of the European countries to the west of the Czech Republic, beer is not pronounced beer here. You quickly learn the eastern European pivo for beer. Pivovar for brewery.
Note in the photo the bus is an electric power line bus, common for city center buses and trams.
Streetcar tram at Mendlovo namesti, Brno
Starobrno Brewery is one of the places closest to Holiday Inn for this part of the city and is sort of on the way when walking to city center. There is a restaurant and pub café at Mendlovo Square.
  
Pivovar Starebrno and Starebrno restaurant
Transportation
The hotel is nearly two miles from the train station. Buy a ticket for 20 CZK (90 cents) and take Tram 1 to Mendlovo namesti, where there is a square with transportation center with buses and trams. Switch to Bus 84 for about 1km or walk to Holiday Inn.
Holiday Inn Brno 15,000 Points Standard Reward Nights
Holiday Inn Brno is 15,000 points per night for a standard reward or a typical hotel rate in the range of $100 to $130 per night when there is not a trade show. This hotel has high rates compared to most hotels in Brno where booking a 4-star hotel for $50 to $70 per night is achievable.
My stay was four nights on IHG PointBreaks when the reward rate was 5,000 points per night and the room rate was $112.75 per night. I consider these $30 hotel nights since there have been several opportunities to buy IHG Rewards Club points in 2015 at the rate of $60 per 10,000 points.
Holiday Inn Brno hotel met all my needs for my trip to Brno. I thought the hotel stay was a great deal using 20,000 IHG Rewards Club points for four hotel nights.
