Kemmon Wilson
Páginas: 2 (322 palabras)
Publicado: 25 de mayo de 2012
He was born in Osceola, Arkansas, the only child of Kemmons and Ruby "Doll" Wilson. His father was an insurance salesman who died when Kemmons was nine months old. Shortly thereafter, his mother,Doll, moved the two to Memphis, Tennessee, where he was raised solely by her.
In college Wilson was a member of Chi Psi Fraternity
Wilson was married to Dorothy Lee.
They had fivechildren: Spence, Robert, Kemmons Jr, Betty, and Carole.
Wilson died in Memphis aged 90 and is interred there in Forest Hill.
[edit] CareerWilson initially came up with the idea after a family roadtrip to Washington, D.C., during which he was disappointed by the quality and consistency provided by the roadside motels of that era. The name Holiday Inn was given to the original hotel by hisarchitect Eddie Bluestein as a joke, in reference to the Bing Crosby movie.
He opened the first Holiday Inn motel in Memphis in 1952, and quickly added others to create an entire hotel chain.Holiday Inn went international in 1960.
The first four roofs put on the Holiday Inn were by James Edwin Murphy.
In 1957, Wilson franchised the chain as Holiday Inn of America and it grewdramatically, following Wilson's original tenet that the properties should be standardized, clean, predictable, family-friendly and readily accessible to road travellers.
By 1958, there were 50locations across the country, 100 by 1959, 500 by 1964, and the 1000th Holiday Inn opened in San Antonio, Texas, in 1968. The chain dominated the motel market, leveraged its innovative Holidex reservationsystem, put considerable financial pressure on traditional hotels and set the standard for its competitors, like Ramada Inns, Quality Inn, Howard Johnson's, and Best Western.
By June 1972, whenWilson was featured on the cover of Time magazine, there were over 1,400 Holiday Inn hotels worldwide. Innovations like the company's Holidome indoor pools turned many hotels into roadside resorts.
In college Wilson was a member of Chi Psi Fraternity
Wilson was married to Dorothy Lee.
They had fivechildren: Spence, Robert, Kemmons Jr, Betty, and Carole.
Wilson died in Memphis aged 90 and is interred there in Forest Hill.
[edit] CareerWilson initially came up with the idea after a family roadtrip to Washington, D.C., during which he was disappointed by the quality and consistency provided by the roadside motels of that era. The name Holiday Inn was given to the original hotel by hisarchitect Eddie Bluestein as a joke, in reference to the Bing Crosby movie.
He opened the first Holiday Inn motel in Memphis in 1952, and quickly added others to create an entire hotel chain.Holiday Inn went international in 1960.
The first four roofs put on the Holiday Inn were by James Edwin Murphy.
In 1957, Wilson franchised the chain as Holiday Inn of America and it grewdramatically, following Wilson's original tenet that the properties should be standardized, clean, predictable, family-friendly and readily accessible to road travellers.
By 1958, there were 50locations across the country, 100 by 1959, 500 by 1964, and the 1000th Holiday Inn opened in San Antonio, Texas, in 1968. The chain dominated the motel market, leveraged its innovative Holidex reservationsystem, put considerable financial pressure on traditional hotels and set the standard for its competitors, like Ramada Inns, Quality Inn, Howard Johnson's, and Best Western.
By June 1972, whenWilson was featured on the cover of Time magazine, there were over 1,400 Holiday Inn hotels worldwide. Innovations like the company's Holidome indoor pools turned many hotels into roadside resorts.
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