By Breven Honda
Keeping a family-friendly hotel in Mesquite was always the goal for the Holiday Inn Resort, which took over for The Rising Star hotel.
Since mid-April, the Holiday Inn has opened its doors with a primary focus to tourists and residents alike in the Mesquite community as well as families and kids’ sports teams. 
“Our main goal is to be a positive addition to the city of Mesquite, to be able to offer something to our local people that are around us, and to offer, people traveling into Mesquite, a different option for their lodging needs,” said Becky Boyack, the general manager of the Holiday Inn Resort. “We’re family friendly, we’re 100% non-smoking, and we’re not a casino. I think a lot of people in Mesquite would like having that kind of an option at a world known brand.”
The Rising Star hotel was previously owned by the Eureka before the Holiday Inn Resort, managed by the Intercontinental Hotel Group, took over early this year.
As a result of taking over, Boyack and the hotel have been in the midst of its renovation process.
“The transition has been awesome,” Boyack said. “We’re bringing life to a building that hadn’t had a lot of life to it. It was built in 1998 so we’re breathing new life into it. It’s exciting to see all the new stuff that we’re doing, from entire room renovations to all the common areas and revamping the restaurant.”
The transition process has had its ups and downs during the transition, including being a countrywide chain and not a local hotel.
“It’s an older building. So, we are working with a lot of older pieces of the property that we’re trying to improve,” Boyack said of the challenges. “Also just being known as the Holiday Inn Resort versus the Rising Star, that’s been a transition for people to kind of wrap their heads around right, because Rising Star was here for a while, but now we’re a branded national hotel.”
As that transition continues, it gives people of all ages the opportunity to be in a great atmosphere.
Some of the amenities that target the youth, include a swimming pool, an arcade room and a children’s center.
“We definitely cater to big groups and families,” Boyack said. “We still have 30 rooms that have the bunk beds. So, it’s a good place for those sports teams to come and be able to accommodate all of them, you know, plus our amenities here at the property.
“So, we’re definitely family-friendly.”
Other amenities the Holiday Inn kept from the Rising Star included the basketball and pickleball courts.
Boyack said it was necessary to keep those with hopes of expanding on its amenities for new and returning clientele.
“It’s absolutely important that we keep those because we are a Holiday Inn Resort,” she said. “So with the resort, we get to offer more amenities than a regular Holiday Inn.
“For future improvements, we are actually putting in a water park for our guests to enjoy that will include a lazy river and a couple water slides.”
