Celebrating Forty Years of HOTELS Magazine: 1970s

By Staff -- Hotels, 8/1/2006

Era Of New Possibilities, New Challenges

By the 1970s, the world was becoming a smaller place. Boeing introduced the 747 jet airplane and long-haul travel became an increasingly more accessible aim. It also meant that airlines needed accommodations for flight staff. Following Pan American Airline’s early model of establishing InterContinental Hotels Corp. to meet this need, several additional airlines, including Air France, KLM and Lufthansa, formed hotel subsidiaries representing what today are still some of the most well-known European hotel brands: Le Méridien, Golden Tulip and Kempinski, respectively. In Japan, Nippon Airways opened its first hotel, the 500-room Sapporo ANA Hotel in 1974, while down under, Australia’s Ansett Airlines was building its own hotel/motel chain around the country. Other fledging hotel companies, including Swiss-based Mövenpick, capitalized on this trend by opening its first hotels at airport locations, in Mövenpick’s case, the Zurich airport.

Early in the decade construction was booming. The 1960s had introduced the roadside hotel and franchising, two concepts that together really took off in the 1970s. In fact, by 1970 a Holiday Inn hotel was opening somewhere in the world every two and a half days. The Middle East also experienced a hotel building boom during this era thanks to oil prosperity. Leisure travel options were expanding more than ever as well. Las Vegas became the “it” destination when Hilton entered the market with the Flamingo in 1970. Timeshare resorts were introduced, and on the family front, Walt Disney World debuted in Orlando in 1971, setting the bar for amusement park and resort combination destinations. And by 1979 the famous Sun City mega-resort would open in South Africa—reaching its heyday in the years to come.

While the beginning of the decade was all about optimism, this would come to an abrupt halt in 1974, when an energy crisis hit the United States and Europe and a subsequent 1975 recession made travel too expensive and made hoteliers for the first time really examine energy management issues. New conservation tactics at this time included dimming lights in corridors and guestrooms, cutting exterior lighting after midnight and controlling guestroom thermostats. While these were not the advanced technical solutions we have today, on the technological front, the 1970s introduced several firsts for the hotel industry. Central reservations systems were introduced to unite both independent and chain hotels. One of the pioneers on this front was Germany’s Steigenberger Hotels, which formed Steigenberger Reservation System in 1970. And by 1975 Club Mediterranee’s new computerized reservations system linked its three North American offices to its Paris headquarters by underwater cable.

In the food and beverage arena, trends of the era also focused on globalization. In March 1975 Service World International reported that “today’s guests from abroad expect the finest dining to introduce them to the best of local food and culture.” Hotels also made training of chefs a higher priority. Westin, for example, established its own training program for chefs in 1978. By contrast, in the budget sector, a growing number of hotels were doing away with restaurants in favor of vending machines that offered hot food.

By the end of the decade, improving economies saw the hotel industry rebounding with stabilizing supply and demand. This would lead to another growth spurt in the years immediately following.

1970: Hilton becomes first billion-dollar lodging and foodservice company

1970: Hilton is first hotel company to enter the Las Vegas market with the Flamingo Hilton

1970: Mexican hotel company Grupo Posadas was founded by Don Gastón Azcárraga Tamayo and began hotel operations with the opening of the Fiesta Palace, now Fiesta Americana Reforma

1970: Cecil B. Day opens first Days Inn on Tybee Island, Georgia

1970: The Boeing 747 is invented

1971: First Shangri-La hotel opens in Singapore

1971: Walt Disney World opens in Orlando

1972: J.W. Marriott Jr. succeeds his father as CEO

1972: Le Méridien brand is established by Air France “to provide a home away from home for its customers.” The first Le Méridien property is the 1,000-room Le Méridien Etoile in Paris

1972: Break in at Democratic headquarters at Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C., leads to President Nixon’s resignation in 1974

1973: The Sheraton Anaheim is the first to offer free in-room movies

1973: Mövenpick hotel chain debuts with two hotels at the Zurich airport

1973: Holiday Inns University debuts as first major training center in Olive Branch, Mississippi

1973: The Peninsula Hotels formed as the marketing division of Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels to promote the company’s hotel interests

1973: Gold Bond changed its name to Carlson Companies

1974: Mandarin International Hotels Ltd. is formed in Hong Kong; acquires 49% interest in The Oriental, Bangkok

1974: Energy crisis hits U.S. hotel industry—hotels react by dimming lights in corridors and guestrooms, turning off exterior lights overnight, controlling thermostats and asking guests to conserve energy

1974: Sofitel makes U.S. debut in Minneapolis, Minnesota

1974: First Ibis hotel opens in Bordeaux, France

1974: Best Western drops the word “motel” from its name and begins competing directly with other full-service lodging chains

1975: Four Seasons is first hotel to offer in-room name brand shampoo

1975: Hyatt Regency introduces Regency Club, a concierge club level that provides VIP service

1975: Golden Tulip Hotels Worldwide forms as a subsidiary of KLM, Royal Dutch Airlines

1975: Days Inn founder Cecil B. Day hands out promotional wooden nickels to all guests over the age of 50, marking the first seniors’ discount program

1975: Accor (then SIEH Group) acquires Mercure brand

1976: Two hotels in Florida are first to offer HBO in guestrooms

1976:Mövenpick opens first hotel out of Europe – Mövenpick Resort Jolie Ville Cairo Pyramids

1976: Four Seasons provides complimentary newspapers with roomservice breakfast delivery

1977: Hilton buys the Waldorf=Astoria hotel in New York City for US$35.8 million

1977:“World’s largest hotel chain” becomes part of Best Western’s corporate identification and advertising theme

1977: Kempinski Hotelbetriebs-Aktiengesellschaft officially changed to Kempinski A.G.

1978: Westin becomes first major hotel company to establish its own training program for executive chefs

1979: Hyatt names first woman general manager, Cheryl Phelps, to the former Queen Mary Hyatt in Long Beach, California

1979: Conrad Hilton dies; Barron Hilton becomes chairman of the board

1979: First hotel at Sun City opened in Bophuthatswana, then an independent state in South Africa, by Sol Kerzner led Southern Sun

1979: Best Western reaches US$1 billion in room sales

1979: Vingcard introduces the world’s first re-codable key card lock; Elsafe invents the world’s first in-room electronic safe