Hilton about his hotel business. Biography of Conrad Hilton

Conrad Nicholson Hilton (Conrad Nicholson Hilton; 1887 - 1979) was an American entrepreneur and investor. Company Founder Hilton- a global hotel chain.

Hilton was born December 25, 1887 in San Antonio, New Mexico, USA. His father, August Halvorsen "Gus" Hilton, was a Norwegian immigrant with his own grocery store, and his mother, Marie Genevieve, was from a devout Catholic American family of German origin. Hilton was the seventh child in their family.

Hilton trained at the New Mexico Military Institute, St. Michael's College (now Santa Fe College), and the New Mexico School, now New Mexico Tech. He was a member of the international Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity. When he turned 21, he took charge of his father's shop, but quickly became disillusioned with the monotony of the business. During this time, he developed his entrepreneurial skills. Seeking new opportunities, Hilton joined the Republican Party and was elected to New Mexico's first state legislature in 1912, when the territory became an official U.S. state. He served two terms before leaving politics. During World War I, Hilton served in the US Army. After serving two years, he was sent home due to the death of his father.

Hilton's mother, having been brought up in the canons of the Catholic Church, instilled in Conrad a love of prayer, whenever he was worried or anxious about something: whether it was upset from the childhood loss of a beloved pony, or serious financial losses during the Great Depression. His mother constantly reminded him that prayer is the best view investments he will ever make.

Hilton's first purchase was the 40-room Mobley Hotel in Cisco, Texas, where he went during the oil boom to open his bank. But his plan to invest in a bank in an oil booming city fell through, and that's when he checked into the Mobley Hotel. Here he saw the potential of this institution and having bought it immediately began repairs. He saw exactly where the mistakes were made in the management of the hotel and immediately began to correct the situation, increasing efficiency. Soon the hotel had a restaurant and a dance hall, as well as an innovation by Hilton, not previously seen in any hotel, a newsstand located in the lobby of the hotel. All his efforts were aimed at meeting the needs of the client. Hilton believed that the hotel staff is responsible for the happiness and comfort of each guest.

Within a year, Conrad's investment paid off in full, so he continued to buy hotels throughout Texas. With the company's proceeds, he bought the Melba Hotel in Fort Worth and the Waldorf Hotel in Dallas. In 1925, Hilton leased land in Dallas and built his first high-rise hotel, the Dallas Hilton, at a cost of $1 million. From that moment on, Hilton set, and I must say, successfully coped with the task of building a hotel every year. The Dallas Hilton was followed by the Abilene Hilton in 1927, the Waco Hilton in 1928, and the El Paso Hilton in 1930. Hilton built his first hotel outside of Texas in 1939 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, known as the Andaluz Hotel. During the Great Depression, Hilton lost several of its hotels and was on the verge of bankruptcy. The new owners offered him to buy the hotels and left him as a manager. Over time, Hilton bought his hotels and continued to build new ones. In 1946, he founded the Hilton Hotels Corporation, reorganized as the Hilton International Company in 1948.

In the 50-60s. the international expansion of the Hilton hotels continued in leaps and bounds. The Hilton Company was the world's first international hotel chain. Hilton owned the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, the Palmer House Hotel in Chicago, the Plaza Hotel in New York, and the Waldorf-Astoria, New York's most luxurious hotel, which Conrad dreamed of buying for a very long time. In 1954, he bought the Statler hotel chain and renamed them the Hilton.

The first overseas Hilton hotel appeared in the city of Madrid in Spain in 1948, after which the Hilton Hotels International company was created. He continued to develop both directions, both domestic and foreign. Ultimately, he had 185 hotels in the United States and 75 overseas hotels.

Conrad Hilton died on January 3, 1979 at the age of 91 and was buried at Calvary Hill Catholic Cemetery in Dallas, Texas. He left most of his wealth to the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, which he established in 1944 for charitable purposes.

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Motivation: self-foundation, will, source of motives, center

Conrad Hilton

Sun in Cancer
You are truly devoted to home and family, hardworking, caring and dreamy. Although you are quiet and diligent, it is very important for you to know what others think of you. You want to be needed by others, and through real concern for people, you can overcome your natural modesty. You love to cook, host and collect. If the need arises, you can intrigue to achieve the goal, and this goal is emotional security. You should always have a quiet place where you can go away from others, as you overreact to outside influences.

Elizabeth Taylor

Sun in Pisces
You are compassionate and tolerant, kind to others and do not want to offend anyone. You do not always make decisions quickly, overcoming your need to escape from difficulties. You are creative, spiritual and often mystical. You are a pleasant person with charm. You easily find yourself in submission to someone and love animals.

Emotions: sensitivity, susceptibility, impressionability

Conrad Hilton

Moon in Gemini
Your emotional side requires variety and novelty, not consistency and depth of feeling. You are more impressed by thoughts than by feelings. Your sense organs serve first of all the mind, and only then the emotions. This increases your capacity for constant observation and reasoning. Your mind is fickle and sometimes unsystematic, but you can absorb a huge amount of little things. You love action and movement, both physical and mental. Your intuition is not very developed, and you are more likely to observe. You quickly accumulate impressions that you can express with words. For your psychological stability, your inclinations are very important, as well as the need to do several things at the same time. You are more interested in the events taking place here and now than in the past. Since you are captured by changeable feelings, you very quickly waste your strength, rushing in different directions, which causes nervous tension. You know how to please others, and sometimes, for the sake of your own well-being, you even resort to cunning. Your restless nature is constantly looking for something new.

Elizabeth Taylor

Moon in Scorpio
Your emotions are intense and often based on strong desires. You are impatient, subject to mood swings and prone to gloomy reflections. You are vulnerable, you can be jealous and even vengeful person. You judge others too quickly and feel the need to quietly manage people. You cannot stand resistance and do not interfere in other people's affairs, but sometimes out of kindness you go for it. You are good at responsibilities, have great potential and entrepreneurial spirit. Although harsh and impulsive, you are self-confident and able to succeed. Usually you get what you want. Since you are jealous, proud and possessive, this position of the Moon does not promise harmony in marriage. The most important thing for you is to learn to forgive and forget, to control your strong, deep feelings.

Intelligence: mind, reason, mind, speech, communication

Conrad Hilton

Mercury in Leo
You are prone to dramatization and, when thinking about something, always involve your heart. You are a dreamer and an idealist, and your connections are usually romantic. You are full of dignity, inner sophistication and always strive to create good impression. You want to be considered an authority, you are able to solve problems, but sometimes you neglect the details. You are ambitious and perform tasks well.

Elizabeth Taylor

Mercury in Pisces
You have psychic abilities and a finely developed intuition, you love to learn and eagerly absorb knowledge, and do not study textbooks. You have an excellent memory, you are thoughtful, romantic and poetic. Sometimes you hide what you really think, and are frank only with close friends or relatives. This position of Mercury indicates duality, which leads to internal contradictions. And if you add to this that you easily succumb to other people's influence, then it is not at all surprising that you often change moods and are too sensitive. You are very vulnerable. A harmonious environment is very important to you, as your reactions are more subconscious than conscious. You try to be an erudite person. Use your many talents and natural wit to combat your potential flaws.

Harmony: measure, conjugation, sympathy, coherence, values

Conrad Hilton

Venus in Gemini
You are generous, friendly and impartial. You need freedom. You want to have an intellectual partner who, if possible, has a sense of humor. You like to wander around the world, you are literate and poetic. Perhaps you will marry early. You have good manners a good relationship with relatives and neighbors, you love your family. By nature, you are curious and try to experience literally everything that life offers you.

Elizabeth Taylor

Venus in Aries
You are a restless, passionate, inspirational person who tends to overwhelm others and your aggressiveness can cause people to leave you. Since you are naturally open and enthusiastic, you excel in all social situations. People like you and can be creative. You can marry early or hastily and not always behave decently.

Activity: will, initiative, effort, leadership-subordination

Conrad Hilton

Mars in Aries
You are courageous, independent, like to dominate. You are a brave and domineering person, You cannot stand routine work and hardly compromise. You are aggressive and full of initiative. Always want to be "behind the wheel". Your enthusiasm inspires other people, often you act as a leader. Maximum success will come to you only when you learn to direct your energy and develop patience and compassion in yourself,

Conrad Hilton family

Daughter - Francesca.

03.01.1979

Conrad Hilton
Conrad Nicholson Hilton

American Entrepreneur

Founder of the Hilton hotel chain

American entrepreneur. Founder of the Hilton hotel chain.

Conrad Nicholson Hilton was born December 25, 1887 in San Antonio, USA. The boy grew up in the family of a grocery store manager. After graduating from college in 1908, he entered the institute, where he received the profession of a mining engineer. Returning home, Konrad helped his father in the store, and when the latter was elected a deputy, he was his assistant.

With the outbreak of World War I, Hilton volunteered for the front. After demobilization in 1918, he began an independent life. Doing business became his main interest. Soon he created a bank that went bankrupt. Further, Hilton made several more attempts to create banks, but to no avail.

By chance, in 1919, he arrived in the small town of Cisco, Texas, where he stayed at the Mobley Hotel, more like a rooming house. Some observations prompted Hilton to enter the hotel business, and Conrad decided to buy this hotel.

Within a year, Conrad had made every meter of his hotel earn by increasing the number of beds and placing glass showcases at the entrance with the necessary little things: newspapers, magazines, razor blades, toothbrushes and more. The new Hilton business went well. Just a year later, he acquired three more hotels, and in 1925 the Dallas Hilton, Conrad's first own hotel, opened.

Soon Hilton began to receive invitations from all over Texas to build and manage hotels. Further, his fortune was already growing with a progression of one hotel per year. The empire was expanding, and Conrad even succeeded with minimal losses go through the Great Crisis of the 1930s. During this period, the entrepreneur learned to support his business during a period of economic instability, and soon hotels with his name could be found throughout the country. Hilton not only built its own, but also gradually outbid competitors' hotels.

In 1946, the Hilton Hotels Corporation was established. This hotel chain became the largest in the United States, and the corporation's turnover grew so much that in 1949 Conrad was able to buy the most luxurious hotel in New York, the Waldorf-Astoria, realizing his old dream. That same year, the first hotel outside America opened in Puerto Rico.

As a result, by the 1960s, Hilton Hotels became the most technologically advanced hotel chain in the world, with about a hundred hotels worldwide, while continuing to grow, and Conrad himself became a multimillionaire.

In 1966, at the age of 78, Konrad retired from corporate management, passing the presidency to his son Barron, but before last day remained chairman of the board of directors. "In retirement" he took up charity work, and he also liked to speak to students. Hilton also organized a Catholic foundation in his name and provided a college of hotel and restaurant management at the University of Houston.

The famous hotelier, the maestro of the hotel business, Conrad Hilton died on January 3, 1979 in the city of Santa Monica, USA. The funeral was held in a quiet, family circle.

The businessman left behind not only a huge fortune. Hilton brought the hotel business to a completely new stage of development, and his initiatives have now become world standards. It was Konrad who was the first to introduce the system of gradation of hotels according to the “star” type and the concept of “standard set of services”, which is the same for all the hotels of the company, and was the first to open the practice of selling essential items in hotel lobbies, developed a system of discounts.

Conrad Hilton family

First wife - Mary Barron (married in 1926).
Three sons - Nicholas, Barron and Eric.

Second wife - Zsa Zsa Gabor (married in 1942), actress.
Daughter - Francesca.

Third wife - Marie Franziska Kelly (married in 1976).

I'm proud to be an innkeeper, I'm proud

Three thousand years of history behind you.

Our craft originated before there was

The Bible is written. Long before the pharaohs, before

How Samson met Delilah in the Sektor tavern

Gaza, long before the Greeks and Romans already existed

Caravanserai. Two thousand years ago Horace called

Us deceitful shinkars, and today from Houston to

New York, from Paris to Tokyo our managers

They are known as the fathers of cities.

Conrad N. Hilton

To date, there are not many people who have never heard of a chain of upscale hotels Hilton. Many people know the fact that a certain Conrad Hilton stood at the origins of their creation. It was he who came up with the idea of ​​assigning "stars" to hotels, and it was he who first opened the practice of selling essential items in hotel lobbies.

Over 2.5 thousand hotels, clubs and recreation centers in 75 countries of five continents and about 2 thousand gambling establishments and bookmakers with more than 600 thousand clients in 160 countries of the world. The number of employees is over 70 thousand people. Financial turnover - about 9 billion pounds. All of the above refers to one transnational company, the name of which is known to almost everyone. This is a Hilton company.

Conrad Hilton born in San Antonio on December 25, 1887, his parents were immigrants from Europe. Arriving in America, the elder Hilton opened a general store that provided a livelihood for the entire fairly large family. However, in 1907, during the economic crisis, August Hilton almost went bankrupt. The family was saved by the idea of ​​renting rooms in their capacious house to temporary residents. To date, it is no longer possible to find an answer to the question of who first came up with this saving idea, but it was Konrad who had to search for guests. Thanks to this undertaking, the family quite successfully survived the period of the Great American Depression.

Trying to please his father, Conrad received a good education and after graduating from college he continued his studies at the military institute in New Mexico. Returning home after studying, Conrad began to help his father in the maintenance of the store. Some time later, Conrad's father became a deputy, and he took his son as his assistant. Despite the prestige of the work, she quickly got bored with the younger Hilton, and as soon as the First World War began, he volunteered for the army.

While Conrad served, his father died in a car accident, and the younger Hilton, after demobilization, had to start his post-war life on his own, practically from scratch.

After going through bankruptcy at the age of 31, Conrad Hilton moved to the small town of Cisco, Texas. After its liquidation, Konrad still had $5,000 left, and he was going to open a new bank or, if possible, buy a suitable one. But very soon his plans changed. In search of lodging for the night, he went to the local hotel Mobley. The banker-loser was struck by the people crowding in the lobby, who literally fought for free rooms. Crowds of clientele are the real dream of any businessman, Hilton thought at that moment. But the owner of the hotel was not at all happy with such pandemonium, and it turned out that he was not averse to selling his 60-room Mobley. That was enough to make Hilton forget about banks forever.

And after a couple of days, he already became the owner of his first hotel, having bought it from the owner

Acquisition of the Mobley Hotel cost Hilton not so cheaply. In addition to his own $5,000, he had to borrow $15,000 from friends and also take out a bank loan for $20,000. Now everything depended on Conrad himself. Mobley's main clientele were workers from the nearby oil fields, who rented rooms only for eight hours of sleep. The rooms cost $1 and $2.5 per night. And although Hilton himself called Mobley-type hotels nothing more than rooming houses, they were somewhat reminiscent of his first hotel experience in organizing a family boarding house during the depression of 1907. The first thing Conrad did in his hotel was to increase the number of beds in order to eliminate the seething crowd waiting for the night. Then he came up with the idea to entertain the visitors with something, while, preferably, for his own benefit. To do this, he placed several showcases around the columns in the lobby, in which every little thing was sold - from newspapers and magazines to clothes brushes and toothpaste. Hilton later said that each column brought him $ 8 thousand. To the surprise of friends and family, who knew how quickly Conrad's bank went bankrupt, things were going just fine in Mobley. A year later, Hilton bought another hotel in the town of Fort Worth, and then two more smaller hotels. By 1924, Hilton had 350 rooms and enough money to build his first hotel from scratch.

A year later, Conrad Hilton purchased another hotel and two small hotels. It was around this period that he came up with the idea of ​​how to entertain visitors, and with a good profit for himself. He placed several showcases in the hotel lobby, where they traded all sorts of useful little things. This business also brought him a good profit. And, as a result, a few more years later, Conrad Hilton created the first hotel of his own name.

Since that moment, Hilton has never doubted that his main business is precisely hotel activities. At one time, he studied banking well, which later served him a good role.

His 325-room Dallas-Hilton hotel opened in August 1925. By this time, Hilton opened at least 1 hotel in Texas annually, and when asked by journalists about when he first felt rich, he invariably answered that in those days when he spent the night in the park on a bench. Of course, this was just a joke.

Standing firmly on his feet, 38-year-old Hilton decided to get married. His chosen one was Mary Barron, who later gave birth to three sons. However, the idyll did not last long. After the stock market crash of 1929, he had to close his hotels. Despite the austerity received and a large loan, it was an absolute collapse. As a result, he lost ownership of his company.

Curiously, it was the same notorious Great Depression that saved him, which contributed to his ruin. The hotel business became unprofitable and the new owners of the Hilton empire tried to get rid of their purchases. They were bought by Conrad Hilton himself, who by that time was working as a manager in one of his former hotels. During the same period, he divorced his wife.

From that moment on, wiser, having survived the last major economic downturn in US history, Hilton continued to build his worldwide company, which was already in his dreams. And the tactics of acquisitions have not changed, just the hotels have become larger. For fifteen years, Conrad painstakingly bought up competitors' hotels and built new ones.

The main changes took place inside the Hilton hotels. In all hotels, the client was met with a standardized set of services. There was even an advertisement that showed a taxi with a single inscription: To the Hilton. To even more equalize his hotels, Konrad was one of the first to designate the class of the hotel with asterisks - like cognac. Another know-how of Hilton was the following: all purchases in hotels were made in advance, based on an analysis of demand and taking into account upcoming events. No customer requirement should come as a surprise. Conrad himself soon earned the nickname enthusiastic dealmaker (enthusiastic businessman) for his indefatigable energy in studying competitors. When he was going to buy a hotel, he personally studied the situation. For example, I watched how many men and women enter and whether they smile when they leave the hotel, what is the size of the lobby, and even how many light bulbs are on in front of the entrance and how many of them burned out. After the end of World War II, the turnover of his company grew so much that in 1949 he was able to fulfill the dream of his life (he constantly carried a photograph of this hotel in his purse) by buying the most luxurious hotel in New York - the Waldorf-Astoria. That same year, the first Hilton outside the United States opened. It was the 300-room Caribe Hilton in Puerto Rico. And in 1954, Konrad paid $111 million for his main competitor in the technological equipment of hotels - the Statler Hotels chain. At that time, this transaction was the largest real estate acquisition in the United States.

By the early 1960s, Hilton had become the most technologically advanced hotel chain in the world, and its expansion was unimpeded. By the end of the 1960s, Conrad had about 40 hotels in the United States and the same number outside of them. Hiltons have become a natural fixture in London, Rome, Caracas and Barbados. In 1964, Hilton spun off all of the overseas assets into the Hilton Group, which has since held the rights to the Hilton brand outside the United States and Mexico. Conrad himself retired from running the company in 1966 at the age of 78. Management passed to his son Barron. After that, he indulged in the quiet old man's joys of a self-satisfied multimillionaire. For example, Konrad loved to speak to students at the opening of the hospitality departments. He also organized a Catholic foundation in his name and generously handed out prizes. Three years before his death, Hilton married a third time.

Conrad Hilton died at the age of 91, having bequeathed his entire fortune to the Hilton Foundation, but his son challenged this decision and the business remained in the family as before.

But the main innovations of the Hilton hotel chain saw the light after his death - when the world entered the electronic era. Following the precepts of the founding father, his followers were the first to occupy all the profitable niches that opened up, mainly due to the fact that work on the electronization of Hilton hotels and related infrastructure began long before the emergence of the now well-known concepts - e-business and IT technologies. Today, competitors are forced to rush through stages of technological restructuring that Hilton has long since passed. Back in 1973, Hilton Hotels was the first in the global hotel business to introduce the Hiltron information and reference system - with its help, the client could remotely obtain information about availability and book rooms along with rail and air tickets. The effectiveness of this system turned out to be above all expectations - it successfully worked for 26 years, and only in 1999 it was replaced by a more modern one - the Central Reservations System (CRS or Hilstar), which united more than 500 hotels around the world. In 1985, the corporation began operating another system - the marketing Answer * Net, which connected all regional offices and hotel complexes within the US. And a decade later, the first in the industry opened the Internet portal www.hilton.com and, with the support of American Express, its own system credit cards Hilton Optima. In 2002, the Hilton empire became one of the initiators of the creation of a unified WorldRes network booking system, which, in addition to Hilton itself, included the resources of two other leading players in the field of the resort and hotel business - Accor and Six Continents. Finally, the company recently successfully announced another innovative service solution - WLAN access based on Symbol Technologies wireless switches. This communication complex was first tested in the Frankfurt Hilton Hotel and immediately gained popularity with the administration and customers.

The main principles of Hilton hotels to this day are the following undeniable postulates:

1. The client must receive the maximum number of services free of charge.

2. Everything the client needs must be on sale at the hotel

3. Absolutely the entire space of the hotel should bring money.

The book "Be My Guest", written by Conrad Hilton, is still a kind of Bible for all hotels.

In this hotel chain for the first time appeared all the attributes modern hotel- air conditioning, Internet booking, automatic locks in the doors of the rooms. But the main innovation was the unification of the hotel and the casino

Grocer Adventurer

When future hotel tycoon Conrad Hilton bought his first hotel, he already had several business failures behind him. Having received an engineering degree, he did not work in his specialty for a single day, but immediately went headlong into financial adventures. They only brought disappointment to Hilton - each new undertaking invariably burned out, and everything had to be started from scratch. Although he showed business acumen as a child: when he helped his father in the family grocery store, sales went up sharply. But Conrad himself dreamed of more than just a job as a grocer in the American outback, which was his native city San Antonio at the end of the last century. The boy saw himself at the head of a prosperous bank, a famous financier who turned over millions.

And only at the age of 31, Conrad Hilton accidentally stumbled upon a case that brought him the long-awaited millions, and turned his name into a legend. In 1919, he once again found himself broke and wondering how to put together start-up capital for new banking scams. And then Hilton bought the idle Mobley Hotel in the Texas town of Sisco. This shabby inn with ridiculous columns on the facade could only be called a hotel if you had the imagination. However, Hilton was not deprived of just fantasy - and a special, entrepreneurial fantasy. He made not only the hotel itself profitable, but even its columns, surrounding them with glass showcases with goods necessary in any hotel: newspapers, magazines, razor blades, toothbrushes and much more. As the owner of the hotel later calculated, each column brought him an additional $8,000.

famous hotelier

Success inspired Hilton, and he, forgetting about the banking business, decided to take a closer look at the previously unknown hotel business. And, apparently, he saw considerable prospects in him. In 1925, he opened the first hotel in Dallas under the brand name Hilton, which became the cornerstone of the famous hotel empire. It grew stronger, expanded and with minimal losses went through the difficult years of the Great Crisis, when Hilton, in whose veins the blood of tight-fisted Scandinavians and Germans flowed, had to save literally on everything, including even his own salary.

In 1946, the Hilton Hotels Corporation was established and became a public corporation. At this time, Hilton expanded its business far beyond Texas, after buying and leasing several luxury hotels, the hotel chain became the largest in the United States.

And in 1949, the first hotel abroad was opened - Caribe Hilton in Puerto Rico. On this occasion, Conrad Hilton founded new company(acting in parallel with the first) - Hilton International, engaged in promoting its brand outside the United States.

Today there are Hilton hotels in almost all countries of the world. Over the past quarter century, Papa Conrad's hotel industry has been replenished with a number of luxury hotels, led by the oldest and one of the most famous hotels in New York, the Waldorf Astoria (in 1977, Hilton Hotels acquired its controlling stake for $ 35 million). The corporation also includes three- and four-star hotels of the British chain Stakis and the Scandinavian Scandic Hotels AB.

Of all the titles given to him by newspapermen, the founder of the hotel empire loved the French name of his profession, hotelier, the most. The famous hotelier passed away in 1979, but until the last day he retained the post of chairman of the board of directors. Only in 1966, on the eve of his 80th birthday, Conrad Hilton allowed himself to part with another post - the presidency, leaving it to his son Barron. Journalists noted that, along with the construction of hotels, Conrad Hilton succeeded in another construction - his family clan: by now, eight children of “Papa Conrad” and almost a hundred grandchildren and great-grandchildren are living and healthy (and some are doing business) in the world .

His autobiography Be My Guest has become a reference book for a generation of hoteliers in many countries. Because the author, who inherited double pedantry from his Norwegian father and German mother, created a whole methodological manual on the topic “how to extract maximum profit from a minimum area or volume.”

standard luxury

The corporate motto of the company: "Guaranteed luxury with affordable service of high standard quality" - attracts a wide variety of clients to its hotels - from crowned heads, business leaders and cultural and show business stars to simple married couples belonging to the middle class. As American journalists wrote, Conrad Hilton was the first to understand what has become a commonplace in the service industry today: both millionaires and people with average incomes are equally in need of real comfort and unobtrusive, but ubiquitous service, and both of them are ready to stop together for this. in the same hotels.

And the main thing that brought success to the Hilton hotel chain was innovation in the field of service and marketing. The corporation was the first to install specialized souvenir and gift kiosks ( commercial network Hilton Country Store). For the first time, all rooms were equipped with such common devices today as air conditioning, direct dial telephone, multifunctional programmable alarm clocks, automatic entry doors. In 1994, Hilton became the first hotel chain in the world to have all properties equipped with automatic opening, closing, locking and blocking of entrance doors. And since 1959, the company began to open specialized hotels at airports, which offered the appropriate package of services for air passengers and flight crews of airlines. Another innovation was the reward system for regular customers - the Hilton Honors program, as well as the system of a nationwide club resort vacation. Then a revolution in the market hotel services produced a joint sea cruise holiday project with Festival Cruise.

In addition, the Conrad Hilton Company was the first in its business sector to introduce and widely disseminate a franchise system, for which a subsidiary, Hilton Inns, was created in 1965. Over time, this system was adopted by all Hilton competitors, while the company of Conrad Hilton itself today operates under franchising agreements with 1352 hotels.

Virtual booking

But the main innovations of the Hilton hotel chain saw the light after his death - when the world entered the electronic era. Following the precepts of the founding father, his followers were the first to be able to occupy all the profitable niches that opened up, mainly due to the fact that work on the "electronicization" of Hilton hotels and related infrastructure began long before the emergence of the now well-known concepts - e-business and IT technologies. . Today, competitors are forced to rush through stages of technological restructuring that Hilton has long since passed. As early as 1973, Hilton Hotels was the first in the world's hotel business to introduce the Hiltron information and reference system - with its help, the client could remotely obtain information about availability and book rooms along with rail and air tickets. The effectiveness of this system turned out to be above all expectations - it successfully worked for 26 years, and only in 1999 it was replaced by a more modern one - the Central Reservations System (CRS or Hilstar), which united more than 500 hotels around the world.

In 1985, the corporation began operating another system - the marketing Answer*Net, which connected all regional offices and hotel complexes in the United States into a single network. And a decade later, the first in the industry opened the Internet portal www.hilton.com and, with the support of American Express, its own Hilton Optima credit card system.

In 2002, Hilton's empire became one of the initiators of the creation of a unified network booking system WorldRes, which, in addition to Hilton itself, included the resources of two other leading players in the field of resort and hotel business - Accor and Six Continents.

Finally, the company recently successfully announced another innovative service solution - WLAN access based on Symbol Technologies wireless switches. This communication complex was first tested in the Frankfurt Hilton Hotel and immediately gained popularity with the administration and customers.

Roulette Hotel

But, perhaps, the most unexpected and controversial innovation was the active and systematic integration of Hilton's hotel business into a neighboring area - the gambling industry.

This alliance began in the late sixties, when two unusual hotel– Las Vegas Hilton and Flamingo Hilton. Unlike all others built earlier, they were also gambling establishments. Prior to that, hotels in Las Vegas were built separately, casinos were built separately. And only Conrad Hilton, for all his piety, came up with a bold idea: to combine living in the "city-roulette" with the main local pastime - the game. This implied an additional system of service and various bonuses for customers. For example, restaurants and bars were placed right in the gambling halls, and each new guest was given free gambling chips for a certain amount.

The innovation was so successful that in 1987, as a result of a series of transactions, Hilton International merged with the British industrial group Ladbroke Group, whose main activity was just casinos, bookmakers, lotteries and sweepstakes. The association later became known as the Hilton Group.

The British gaming empire did not become the dominant division in the Hilton Group, but it certainly saved the hotel business during the most severe crisis associated with the main tragedy of the new century - the terrorist attacks in New York in September 2001. After them, for the entire global hotel business (as well as air passenger, tourism, and many others), the era of relative prosperity of the late 1990s was replaced by a period of decline. And for someone - and a complete collapse.

For some, but not for the Hilton Group, she once again demonstrated a rare insight, having managed to acquire a saving magic wand in the form of the mentioned gambling business. Because it quickly became clear that natural and man-made crises and catastrophes in society lead to the fact that people are less willing to travel, fly on planes and stay in hotels, but the craving for gambling in such times, on the contrary, only intensifies! Which, in general, is natural - when everything is unstable in the world, there is a growing hope to increase one's well-being with the help of fortune.

In the first years of the new millennium, the Hilton Group's hospitality sector suffered losses, but profits from another division - gambling and betting - made it possible not only to cover them, but also to increase profits in 2003 by almost $ 2 million compared to the previous year. The Hilton Group's total sales in 2003 were approximately $16 billion, of which only 19% came from Hilton International's hotel division.