Word: hiltonization
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...person who holds the answer is Conrad Hilton-and he is bored by the subject. "You see," says Olive Wakeman, "Mr. Hilton won't face things that aren't nice." An eternal optimist, Hilton considers everything about himself and his way of life indestructible and unchanging-unless he changes it. Resting up one fine afternoon recently before a globe-girdling trip, he sat on the terrace of his enchanted house in Bel Air, a fistful of peanuts in his hand. Loudly he whistled again and again for a half-domesticated bluejay named Chairman of the Board. The bird...
Spying the same opportunities, other U.S. chains are following Hilton abroad as fast as they can. The second biggest U.S. hotel chain after Hilton, Sheraton Corp., now has seven foreign hostelries; Hotel Corp. of America has five, and Knott Hotels three. But Hilton's biggest U.S. rival overseas is Intercontinental Hotels Corp., a Pan American World Airways subsidiary that has no hotels in the U.S. In the past six years, Intercontinental has added 13 hotels abroad, to bring its total to 19, expects to double that number within four years. Its hotels are generally smaller than Hilton...
...Hilton chain, during this year's first quarter, domestic revenues fell 10.6% and profits by nearly a half, offsetting profits from abroad. The recently opened New York Hilton (2,153 rooms) in Rockefeller Center offers what new U.S. hotels need nowadays if they hope to succeed: free parking to compete with the motels, expensive specialty restaurants to attract the high-livers, and lots of room for conventions to meet. It may be the last of its kind. "With perhaps an exception here and there," says Conrad Hilton, "we are not going to build any more large hotels in this...
Wringing the Dollars. Even so, Hilton is doing better than most hoteliers in the U.S., and better than any abroad. An English author once described American tourists as people who "dare everything and risk nothing"-and nowhere do they risk less than at Hilton hotels. Whether he is in Teheran or Trinidad, the traveler can be sure that Hilton will offer him a clean bed, pleasant surroundings, plentiful ice water, and food that he can safely eat. He can also be sure that, while supplying American comforts, Hilton will wring his dollars out of him as efficiently, as economically...
...Hiltons are assembly-line hostelries with carefully metered luxuries-convenient, automatic, a bit antiseptic. Conrad Hilton's life is rooted in the belief that people are pretty much equal, and that their tastes and desires are, too. His hotels have made the world safe for middle-class travelers, who need not fear the feeling of being barely tolerated in some of the older European hotels; at a Hilton, all they need is a reservation and money...