Hilton Hotels & Resorts

Hilton Hotels & Resorts

Industry	Hotel
Founded	1919 (1919)
Founder	Conrad Hilton
Headquarters	Tysons Corner, Virginia
Number of locations	540+ hotels[1]
Area served	Global
Key people	Rob Palleschi (Division Head)
Parent	Hilton Worldwide
Website	www.hilton.com

Hilton Hotels & Resorts^[2] (formerly known as Hilton Hotels) is an international chain of full service hotels and resorts and the flagship brand of Hilton Worldwide.^[3]

The original company was founded by Conrad Hilton. As of 2010, there were over 530 Hilton branded hotels across the world in 78 countries across six continents. Hilton hotels are either owned by, managed by, or franchised to independent operators by Hilton Worldwide.

Overview

The Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills

Hilton Istanbul Bosphorus (1955) was built as the first Hilton hotel in Europe and is currently the longest serving Hilton hotel outside the United States. It appeared in the James Bond film From Russia with Love (1963).

The Hilton Athens in Athens, Greece

Hilton Hotel in Tokyo

The Hilton in Paris

The Hilton in Sheffield

The Hilton Hotels brand remains one of the company's flagship brands and one of the largest hotel brands in the world. The company places marketing emphasis on both business travel and leisure travel with locations in major city centers, near airports, convention centers, and a number of vacation resorts and leisure-oriented hotels in popular vacation destinations around the world.

The company's Hilton HHonors guest loyalty program is one of the largest of its kind^[4] and has numerous partnerships with airlines and car rental companies. Some Hilton Hotels feature an Executive Level lounge for HHonors Gold and Diamond members and those willing to pay for Executive Rooms. The lounge is normally located on the highest floor of the hotel building. In addition to Hilton Hotels, the Hilton HHonors membership can also be used at all other Hilton Worldwide brands.

In the 2010s, the company upgrade the energy efficiency in many of their UK branches, installing green controls for doors, windows and heating to ensure intelligent usage of energy depending whether rooms are let or vacant.^[5]

The U.S. branch of Hilton hotels was reunited with the international properties after more than 40 years in February 2006, when United States-based Hilton Hotels Corporation purchased the hotels division of United Kingdom-based Hilton Group plc, which had acquired Hilton's International operations in 1987 (the companies had been separated originally in 1964).^[6]

The company has been using the brand messaging “Take me to the Hilton” for almost half a century. ^[7]

Hilton Garden Inn in Portsmouth, New Hampshire

Notable historic events

• Founded in 1919 97 years ago by Conrad Hilton. Hilton bought his first property, the Mobley Hotel, in 1919 in Cisco, Texas.^[8]
• The first hotel to bear the Hilton name was the Dallas Hilton, a high-rise that opened in Dallas, Texas in 1925.^[9]
• In 1949, at the Caribe Hilton Hotel's Beachcomber Bar in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Ramon "Monchito" Marrero created the Piña Colada.^[10]
• In 1954, Hilton hotels bought the Statler Hotel chain, making it the largest hospitality company in the world. The company also closed a deal with oilman Glenn H. McCarthy where his Shamrock Hotel property and business interests became part of the Hilton chain, renamed the Shamrock Hilton a year later.
• The Conrad Hilton Hotel in Chicago figured prominently in the 1968 Democratic Convention riots that occurred across the street in Grant Park. The hotel's doors were locked for the first time in its history. The hotel still suffered minor damage as a result of the violence outside as the street level windows gave way under the weight of hundreds of protesters on the street during the ensuing riot.
• John Lennon and Yoko Ono held their first Bed-In for Peace between March 25 and March 31, 1969 at the Amsterdam Hilton in Room 902. This room became a popular tourist destination.^[11]
• On April 3, 1973, Martin Cooper made the world's first handheld cellular phone call in public when he called Joel S. Engel at the New York Hilton with a 2-pound Motorola DynaTAC phone.^[12]
• The Beirut Hilton finished construction and was supposed to open on April 14, 1975. However, the Lebanese Civil War erupted exactly one day before the Grand Opening date on April 13. The hotel was never opened and was severely damaged during the war. The building was demolished in the late 1990s. However, a different hotel relative to the Hilton Chain was established later under the name of "Hilton Beirut Grand Habtoor" in the nearby eastern suburb. Later on, the Hilton Chain bought the Metropolitan hotel directly facing the Grand Habtoor and renamed it "Hilton Metropolitan".^[13]
• On 13 February 1978, the Sydney Hilton Hotel was the site of one of the few terrorist incidents on Australian soil, when a bomb blast killed 3 people (2 council workers and a policeman).
• The Hilton Nicosia in Nicosia, Cyprus, was the scene of the assassination of Youssef Sebai, an Egyptian newspaper editor and friend of Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat, on February 19, 1978. The assassination and the hijacking of a Cyprus Airways DC-8 at Larnaca Airport led to the Egyptian raid on Larnaca International Airport by Egyptian forces. The intervention by the Egyptians led to the deterioration of relations between Cyprus and Egypt.
• The Amsterdam Hilton hotel has had two more notable incidents. On June 27, 1991, Dutch drug kingpin Klaas Bruinsma, once a major drug dealer in Europe, was assassinated in front of the building. On July 11, 2001, Dutch artist Herman Brood committed suicide by jumping from the roof.^[14]
• In 2009, the company relocated its global headquarters from Beverly Hills, California to Tysons Corner, Virginia.^[15]
• In 2009 Hilton opened Canada's tallest hotel at 58 stories in Niagara Falls, Ontario.
• In late 2010, Hilton Worldwide announced a name change of the Hilton Hotels brand to Hilton Hotels & Resorts along with a new logo design as part of a rebranding effort for the flagship brand.^[16]
• On February 11, 2012, multi-Grammy Award winning singer Whitney Houston drowned in the bathtub of room 434 at the Beverly Hilton.
• In July 2012, tightrope walker Jay Cochrane walked from the Skylon Tower to the top of the Hilton in Niagara Falls, Ontario.
• In March 2013, Hilton announced that it would be entering Burma for the first time with the construction of a 300-room hotel in Yangon.^[17]

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Hilton hotels.

• Official Hilton Hotels & Resorts website
• Hilton Hotels & Resorts index homepage