Word: motel
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Correspondents Alan Anderson and John Tompkins as they followed Kemmons Wilson, board chairman of Holiday Inns, across two continents to gather material for this week's cover story. Anderson, based in our Rio de Janeiro bureau, accompanied Wilson on a swing through Brazil in search of new motel sites. Beginning as early as 4 a.m., Wilson, with Anderson in tow, visited with local officials, toured local marketplaces and even traveled the Amazon. "I had been warned about his pace," says Anderson, who is 29. "But I still wasn't ready for it. He worked constantly except for catnaps...
Contributing Editor James Grant, who wrote the story, chose a less exhausting approach to the Wilson phenomenon. On an inspection trip, he decided to sample the service at a pair of Holiday Inns outside New York City. In Kingston, N.Y., he found the staff conscientious; the motel manager phoned every name in the registry late one night until he finally matched Grant to the car in the parking lot with its lights left...
Gifts for Brides. Holiday Inns' canny management is matched by its aggressive marketing. For example, it uses its Holidex reservation system to find out which areas produce the most bookings, then directs its heaviest advertising to them. Each motel manager is expected to make at least five sales calls a week, visiting local civic and fraternal clubs to hymn the benefits of using his inn for meetings. Some managers cull newspapers for engagement announcements, and send bracelets and other gifts to prospective brides, along with a pitch to honeymoon at Holiday Inns...
Permissive social values have reduced promiscuity as a problem for motel men. Often an unmarried couple will register for the same room under their own names and dare the clerk to say anything. Holiday Inns' policy is to turn down couples only when they are from the local community and known not to be married. Many motels and hotels make no effort at all to check. Loew's Corp. President Preston Tisch remembers ruefully when his teen-age son was working behind the desk of the Americana in Manhattan. Says Tisch: "He wouldn't check...
More Than Money. For Wilson, the challenges of the motel business remain even more tempting than charred steak dripping with Tabasco sauce, and he expects to remain in the top job at Holiday Inns for many years. He also has a sense of mission and sees the role of his company as more than a great money machine. Says he: "I think we can do more for world peace through tourism and building Holiday Inns around the world than anything else. We get to know other people and they get to know us and that's good...