“Hotel chains are springing up all over Europe and literally everybody is trying to cash in on the tourism boom,” read Service World International’s July 1970 issue, in announcing Loews Corp.’s first foray into the London market: the 500-room Churchill, built at the lavish (for the time) expense of £5 million.
It didn’t skimp on luxuries, either: It featured two telephones and a color television in every room.
The hotel is now a Hyatt Regency, but the original name remains, and the Tisch family still owns Loews.
As well, the company seems to have focused on a demographic that is all the rage today: the coveted younger generation. They weren’t called millennials then, but SWI’s article points out that the hotel’s various managers all fall into the 20- and 30-something range “and project the kind of young, progressive management approach” that characterized the company in the United States—about 40 years ago.
See last week’s Throwback Thursday, a feature we’re doing all year long to celebrate HOTELS’ 50th anniversary.