Most people know about Holiday Inn Express, and this one is fairly typical. They tend to be a bit better than Travel Inn and, at £65-75 a night, a bit dearer. The rooms tend to be a bit more spacious and a bit smarter than Travel Inn and you get a few more TV channels.
There are a couple of drawbacks, though. First, the rooms are not well soundproofed, so if you've got a screaming baby next door, it WILL keep you awake. Secondly, breakfast choice is limited to continental self-service and the coffee from the machine is rotten.
There are also some nice touches, though. For example, there's a snack area in reception where you can buy emergency snacks (crisps, Mars bars, instant noodles, etc.) for reasonable prices, which is handy. Also, the staff here was helpfulness personified and moved me right away when, after two solid hours, I concluded the screaming baby next door was set for the long haul.
This one is next to a retail park on the outskirts of Inverness just off the Aberdeen road. There's a handy supermarket there and also a pub/restaurant (Snow Goose) that does reasonable pub meals up to 9.30 at night. The hotel’s bar area is nice, but typically pricey for hotels (beer cost £3 a pint).
This HI Express is good as a stopover or if you're working (which I was), but not such a good base for exploring Inverness itself on foot. It’s currently on the edge of town (Inverness is sprawling at an alarming rate), so there are certainly better centrally located options if you want to be at the heart of town.