Who Hasn’t Stayed At A Holiday Inn Hotel?
When someone says to you the words ‘Holiday Inn’, do you think of the 1942 movie starring Bing Cosby and Fred Astaire? Probably not. In fact, you’re probably thinking of the hotel chain, because today Holiday Inn hotels are a widespread staple of American life. Almost every little town that you can visit has a Holiday Inn, and because they are so affordable people have no problem using them over and over again. Unlike high-class hotels like The Four Seasons, Holiday Inn hotels cater to a more middle-class demographic while still retaining good product quality.
The Background
It all started in Memphis, Tennessee, in the year 1952. Created by a homebuilder named Kemmons Wilson, Holiday Inn was built to provide the American family a cheap but effective place to stay. Wilson said he came up with the idea when he and his family took a trip to Washington D.C. He says he was extremely disappointed by the quality of the roadside hotels on the ways there and back, and he was so adamant about it that he went ahead and founded Holiday Inn hotels then and there. However, going back to my original posed question, the name Holiday Inn was actually taken from the Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire movie. Being a fan of the movie, the building’s architect, Eddie Bluestein, called his creation The Holiday Inn, and the name stuck.
Apparently Wilson was right in his assessment of what the people needed, because Holiday Inn hotels took off like a rocket. By 1964, a mere 12 years after Wilson opened his first hotel, there were over 500 Holiday Inns around the US. This not only opened up pathways for other companies such as Red Roof Inn and Days Inn but it also put strong financial pressure on the more expensive resorts, forcing them to either drop their price or suffer the loss of their customers. Wilson didn’t want his hotels to be anything special, he just wanted them to offer reliability, family safety, and predictability. No confusing reservations are necessary at the Holiday Inn hotel; you just walk on in and get yourself a room.
Flash Forward
Later on, the Holiday Inn hotel chain grew until it not only did it encompass hotels but other businesses as well. The company changed its name to the Holiday Corporation in 1985, six years after Wilson retired. It now houses dozens of different enterprises, and there isn’t much anyone can do to slow it down. Current president Ravi Saligram says that the next step to revitalize Holiday Inn hotels is to create what he calls “Next Generation” hotels, which have 130 rooms, a restaurant, and an indoor pool. The first of these prototypes was opened in 2003 in Duluth, Georgia, to mixed reviews.
