The hotelier who acquired the most famous hotels in the USA – this is how Conrad Hilton entered the history of the United States. He was the eighth child in his family. His father, August Hilton, was a well-known citizen of San Antonio with a general store and trading business.
From childhood, Conrad dreamed of managing a bank and mingling with millionaires. Meanwhile, during World War I, he volunteered to go to France and served in the army.
When he returned, he found his father had passed away and he had to take over the family business. This was Conrad’s first encounter with the hospitality industry.
He was 31 when his first bank went bankrupt. He had only $5,000 in his account and many dreams. However, at that time he was only thinking about banking, until he decided to stay at the Mobley Hotel in Cisco, Texas. “There were many people, few vacant rooms, and poor service.” Conrad bought the Mobley Hotel, and so began his long story of success. First, he increased the number of hotel rooms, then he displayed thousands of small items in the hotel window and started selling them. Later, Hilton recalled that just one such “counter” brought in $8,000 in monthly revenue. This was one of Hilton’s common approaches – “making money” from every space to achieve maximum profit.

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Conrad Hilton was the first to introduce the star rating system for hotels.

Within a year of acquiring Mobley, Hilton bought first one and then several more hotels. Soon he had a total of 350 rooms across all his hotels. Later on,

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In 1925, the new Dallas Hilton hotel opened, which had 300 rooms.

Soon, an economic crisis began in the United States, which caused great financial damage to the hotel business. Hilton was forced to sell the business, but Conrad, who remained in management, gradually bought back the business and soon acquired first New York’s best hotel “Plaza” and then the Waldorf-Astoria hotel. At the same time, Hilton’s first hotel opened in Puerto Rico.

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Hilton was the first to create an international hotel chain.

He once again attracted the attention of the financial community in 1954 when he bought his main competitor, Statler Hotels, for $111 million. By this time, he was already managing two companies – “Hilton Hotels” in the States and “Hilton International” abroad.

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The reason for the chain’s success was simple – luxury and comfort attracted all kinds of customers.

For the first time, the “Hilton” chain featured shopping displays in the lobby, and no hotel before had air conditioning in the rooms, automatic control doors, alarm clocks, or telephones with direct lines. They also introduced the concept of a frequent guest program for the first time.

In 1966, Conrad Hilton stepped down from management and wrote a book called “Be My Guest”.

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“Each hotel should reflect the breath of its city and country”

This approach of Hilton’s is particularly noteworthy, as it played a significant role in the success of his business. It’s also worth noting that he always put great effort into selecting managers, and then gave them a lot of freedom in their activities. In 2007, Blackstone acquired the hotel business from the Hilton family for $26 billion. The chain owns 3,750 hotels with 600,000 rooms in 84 countries worldwide.
To this day, the chain is associated with innovative approaches such as the loyalty program introduced back in 1987, creating a website for the hotel in 1996, as well as developing a mobile application and offering online check-in capabilities.
Finally, it should be noted that before his death, Conrad donated approximately $1 billion to charity.