If you were a globe-trotting hotelier in the ’90s, chances are you were reading HOTELS magazine. And if you had lived on a few continents, chances were good that you also were a member of the Global Hoteliers Club.
Last week, we wrote about how the club got started. Since then, we’ve been poking through the 1998 directory that former publisher Don Lock popped in the mail to us, and it’s a treasure trove.
Pick a random page and you’ll see dozens of locations, languages and countries – including some that no longer exist, like Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), where Andrew Huxsted did a stint. He spent time in Pakistan, England and Scotland, as well, although in 1998 he was the general manager of the the Sheraton Riyadh Hotel & Towers.
Or Massimo Ianni, who listed six languages and five continents. Then the GM of the Park Hyatt Buenos Aires, he’d already logged time in French Polynesia, Australia, China, Morocco and Switzerland.
Or Neil Jacobs: You know him now as the CEO of Six Senses Hotels Resorts & Spas, but in 1998 he was the regional vice president and GM of the Four Seasons Hotel Singapore and had already hit the five-continent mark, landing in Beverly Hills, California; Venezuela, Barbados, the Seychelles, England, Sri Lanka, Italy, the Portuguese archipelago of Madeira, and Indonesia.
For every country and every hotel location, there’s probably a great story or two. We wish there were room in the directory for those.
Were you a member of the Global Hoteliers Club? We’d love to hear from you. And we’re pretty sure you have some great stories.
#ThrowbackThursday is a weekly feature in 2016 to celebrate HOTELS magazine’s 50th anniversary.