What's up with all the Holiday Inn references?
There's a cute series of TV commercials in which someone, during a crisis, acts like an incredibly knowledgeable expert, in places like a nuclear lab, an operating room, etc., and someone, impressed by the wisdom of his observations, asks: "are you a [nuclear physicist or whatever it might be] and the person answers 'no, but I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night."
Television advertising campaign put on by Holiday Inn where people say that while they aren't in an occupation requiring a lot of brain power they are still intelligent enough to have stayed at a Holiday Inn last night and by implication save money. It's now a tongue in cheek reference to intelligence.