Word: motels
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...What was the color of the magic pencil in The Pink Motel...
Lately, more and more people have been staying at Earl's. In the first half of 1970, a relatively bad year for the motel industry, profits of Gagosian's 40 Royal Inns in eleven states have tripled, to $389,000. Room occupancy is down 7% nationwide, Royal Inns' is up 6.7% . This month Royal Inns will open four new motels, one a 15-story inn that will be the largest building in Anchorage, Alaska. Nine others are being built in California, Arizona, Georgia and Florida...
Besides Gagosian's gimmicks, there are other reasons for the upsurge in luxury motels. In many suburbs the cocktail lounge of the local motel has become an after-hours social center. Vacationing patrons of the nation's 427,000 campsites often make periodic visits to a motel for a shower and a respite from the rigors of outdoor life. And increasing numbers of Americans, reluctant to fight traffic, spend their vacations or long weekends at a cushy motel right in their own town...
Poured Foundation. Gagosian, 46, was one of the first to recognize such trends. Son of an Armenian immigrant who was converted to Mormonism ("I'll bet I'm the only Armenian Mormon you ever met"), Gagosian literally helped pour the foundation of the nation's motel industry. In a 20-year career as a hardhat construction worker and later as vice president in charge of construction for TraveLodge Corp., he helped build more than 300 motels. He tired of duplicating TraveLodge's basic pattern, and in 1965 assembled three fellow employees and $50,000 to build...
Mindful of Gagosian's success, other innkeepers are moving away from the motel industry's tradition of standardized shelter. Holiday Inns, for example, is planning an elaborate motel-resort at Hialeah near Miami. But Gagosian, who well remembers his hard life on the construction crew, has built a margin of safety into his luxury empire. "If times should get really bad in the economy," he says, "there is not a room in our chain that we couldn't rent for $8-and pay our expenses at 70% occupancy...