Room for reservations

EVERYTHING about Bass smacks of British brewing: its name; its pubs; even its sickly-sweet Britvic orange, a favourite soft option for pubgoers. Most British of all—down to the gin and tonic that he offers visitors to his London office—is Sir Ian Prosser, its tall, dour chairman and chief executive, a brewing lifer who joined Bass Charrington more than 30 years ago.The reality, though, is that the staid Sir Ian is reinventing Bass as a hotels company. With almost 3,000 hotels in 95 countries, Bass is already the second-largest hotel group in the world. Its Holiday Inn, Inter-Continental and Crowne Plaza brands contributed two-fifths of group profits last year.