INNS OF EARLY TIMES
Hotel Industry – one of the oldest trade endeavors in the
world.
3000 BC – The first Inns which were established for the
people on the move spurred by the urge to travel.
Private homes of husband and wife team – earliest
Inns who provided large halls, for travelers to roll out their
own beds and sleep on the floor.
 The Innkeepers also provided modest
wholesome food like cheese, vegetables and a
variety of cakes and buns, and meat when
available.
 The host’s wife or his wench provided
entertainment and recreation by performing folk
songs and dances.
 To provide stabling facilities
 Travel was mostly by horse and later by horse
driven carriages.
320 BC – at the time of the Roman Empire, inns became
commonplace, because of the need of the romans for
political, administrative and military travel. The Romans
introduced Ins to Britain.
The Bible (referred to as a historical document) gives an
account of Joseph (Father of Jesus Christ) who found all
the inns full because of a census called by King Herod, in
Bethlehem before he took Mary to a cowshed to give birth
to Jesus.
Religious Travel grew strongly after the crucifixion of
Christ. As Christianity spread in Europe so did religious
travel.
Church – one of the important providers of lodging
places for pilgrim in the first century AD.
Roman Catholic Church – maintained hospices,
monasteries and hostels for pilgrims during the middle
ages that offered free doles of bread and ale.
Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem – established such
lodgings to protect pilgrims travelling to Jerusalem.
(Hospice at a market place)
Trip to Jerusalem – England’s oldest private inn at
Nottingham in 1189 where the knights of Richard the
Lionhearted met in their call for the Crusades.
Private inns in Britain grew in the 14th and 15th centuries
including the Tabard Inn at Southwark made famous by
Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and the George Hotel in
Oxfordshire, a testimony of the 15th century.
Between the 16th and 17th centuries, inns developed into
coaching inns in main towns because of the advent of
coach travel. The white horse in Chichester is one such
example dating from 1795 A.D
HOTELS IN MODERN TIMES
 The advent of the Industrial revolution in England
brought ideas and progress in the business of
innkeeping.
 The development of railways and steam ships
made travelling more permanent.
 Travel also change from social or government
travel to business travel.
 The lead in hotelkeeping was taken by the
emerging nations of Europe, especially
Switzerland.
 It was in Europe that the birth of and organized
hotel industry took place in the shape of chalets
and small hotels, which provided a variety of
services and were mainly patronized by the
aristocrats of the day.
 Aristocrats received their education by travelling
through Europe for periods ranging from three to
six months.
 They needed accommodation for these travels
which was made possible by chalets and superior
inns of the day.
 During this century, food, drink and rest were the
combined services of inns, hotels, pubs, and
restaurant.
 Hotels in Europe, as we know today, began in
Napoleonic Wars, providing accommodation for
officers on leave. They were generally run by
French refugees.
 Into the 19th century hotels became distinctive
with ornate fronts, polished wood, brass, and
mirrors. A good example id the Red Lion,
Claridges, and browns in London.
 Rail travel in Britain produced bigger hotels like
the Pancras, Victoria, Charing cross, and the
Great Eastern in England reflecting Victorian
architecture.
HISTORY OF HOTELS IN AMERICA
Samuel Cole – is credited with the opening the first inn in
1634 A.D., In Boston, called Cole’s Ordinary. Inns such
as this provided beer and rum and plentiful cheap food.
USA – place of the real growth of the modern hotel
industry, beginning with the opening of City Hotel in New
York in 1794 A.D
 New York then was a busy seaport with a
population of 30,000 people. This was the first
building especially erected for a hotel and had 73
guest rooms.
This led to great competition between different cities and
resulted in Frenzied hotel building activities.
1. Exchange Coffee House in Boston
2. Second City Hotel in Baltimore
3. Mansion House in Philadelphia
4. Adelphi Hotel in New York
1829 – The Tremont house in Boston had the distinction
of being the first luxury hotel in America. It was the first to
offer private rooms with locks, a wash bin, pitcher, and
soap. It had French restaurant and uniformed service
personnel. This signaled the development of luxury hotels
in the USA during 1800’s.
Pre-luxury runners in luxury hotel development
 Grand Pacific in Chicago
 Palmer House and Sherman House in St. Louis
 Paxton in Omaha
1874 – William Chapman Ralston established a super
luxury property called the Palace Hotel in California
during the Gold rush. It was built on the lines of a
European palace with domed glass roof, marble floors,
own water supply, fire sprinkler system, and air-
conditioning. It has 800 plush rooms over seven floors.
1908 – Ellsworth M. Statler saw need for providing
accommodation for a new segment – the business
traveler. He created the Statler Hotel in Buffalo, New
York, built specially for the commercial sector.
Statler Hotel – provided private baths and full-length
mirror. The Statler went into chain operations and can be
credited to be the first hotel chain.
1927 – The Stevens Hotel, a 3000-room hotel (later
renamed the Conrad Hilton) became the largest hotel in
the world.
The depression in 1930 had a disastrous effect on the
hotel industry. 85% of the hotels went bankrupt. One
hotelier who kept afloat was Conrad Hotel who made the
Mobley, Cisco, Texas a profitable venture. The outbreak
of World Ward II brought a tremendous upsurge. This
prosperity continued through the war years into the fifties
when two new concepts emerged: a.) Motels and b.)
International chain operations
HISTORY OF MOTELS AND ITS FEATURES
Tourist Cabins – first motel that were established in
Western United States during the early 1900, when
people began to travel by automobile and could not travel
the long distances between towns in one day.
Automobiles by then had come a long way from the first
steam car in 1770 A.D., invented by Nicolas Joseph
Cugnot of France followed by the car with the internal
combustion engine by Jean Etienne Lenoir of France in
1860.
1885 – Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz in Germany
developed the petrol engine the forerunner of what we
have today. The technology was brought to the US in
1890 by Charles and Frank Duryea.
Henry Ford & Eli Olds – who created the concept of
mass production of cars in 1908 that made automobiles a
household possession.
Early 1900s – Motor Inns served fishermen, hunters
besides vacationers in remote areas.
1940s and 1950s – the great increase in automobile led
to the development of motels situated at busy
interchanges and on highway.
Memphis Businessman Kemmons Wilson – thought of
standardizing motels into chain operation. He created the
first Holiday Inn on the outskirts of Memphis. Tennessee,
which remain the headquarters of the holiday inn chain. It
had 126 rooms, swimming pool, free ice, free parking and
dog kennels.
1982 – the Holiday Inns built Embassy Suites, Crown
Plazas, and Hampton Inns which are segmented chain.
The holiday Inn is now a subsidiary of a British Hotel
group, the Bass Company.
Cecil B. Day – in 1970, opened budget motels and saw
an opportunity with the construction of Disney World and
Epcot Centre in Orlando, Florida.
The Days Inns – one of the world’s largest motel chain.
ADVENT OF HOTEL CHAIN
Howard Johnson – in 1925, created the first soda pop
fountain in Quincy, Massachusetts expanding into the first
restaurant chain of 400 restaurants through franchise –
the leasing of a branded name. He soon entered into
hotels making the Howard Johnson Hotel chain a
worldwide name.
William Marriott – started as a restauranteur with A&W
fast food restaurant chain in 1928. He entered into hotel
industry in 1940s expanding it into a 5.3 billion-dollar
Marriott Corporation with segmented hotel chains such
as Marriott Hotel, Residence Inns, and Courtyard hotels.
1950 – another new concept emerged-budget hotel.
Budget hotel – bought cheap land and offered lodging
only. Budget hotels stripped all services like food and
beverage, laundry, housekeeping, uniformed services to
be able to give a cheap rate.
Travelodge – first budget hotel in Tacoma Washington. It
is now a subsidiary of Trusthouse Forte a luxury chain in
the U.K.
The international chains provided the following
relationships to individual owners:
a) Partnership – sharing equity and profits.
b) Franchise – providing name and association
against a fee.
c) Management Contract – providing professional
managers, technicians, operational manuals.
Systems, etc. on the basis of management fees
and a share of profits as incentive payment.