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Pioneering New Hotel Experiences for a Century and Beyond
Conrad Hilton understood what travelers needed—and after nearly 100 years, his company continues to make a profound impact on guests, Hilton Team Members, and the world.
He earned a degree in engineering, but that field didn’t interest him. No, he’d always wanted to buy a bank, and that’s just what he intended to do during his visit to the small Texas town of Cisco in 1919. Yet he wound up with a very different purchase: The Mobley Hotel, at the time “a cross between a flophouse and a gold mine,” as he later described it, catering to itinerant oil workers.
Nearly 100 years and almost 5,500 hotels later, you could say it turned out to be a smart move for Conrad Hilton, whose last name is now synonymous with hospitality. “It wasn’t until I joined Hilton a decade ago that I came to fully grasp what Conrad Hilton understood so many years before me—that the potential for travel to empower people rests on a hospitality company’s ability to enable travelers to be their best selves,” says Chris Nassetta, Hilton’s president and CEO. “If you look at the legacy of this company, in so many ways we invented the [hospitality] business as you know it today.”
If you look at the legacy of this company, in so many ways we invented the [hospitality] business as you know it today.
After its humble beginnings at the Mobley, Hilton Hotels & Resorts is preparing to celebrate its centennial next year. To mark the occasion, the company asked Chip Heath, a New York Times bestselling author and professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and author Karla Starr to delve into the company’s history. What they found was the Hilton Effect: the company’s transformative impact on the travel experience of more than 3 billion guests and counting; on the nearly 10 million Team Members who’ve contributed to the company’s success, including almost 400,000 across the globe today; and on the communities surrounding its hotels in 106 countries and territories, where it often plays a tremendous role in economic development.
While conducting research and gathering stories from Hilton properties across the world, Heath identified key practices and philosophies established by the company early on that have fueled the Hilton Effect from the beginning and still power it today. Conrad, whose family’s business in New Mexico in the early 1900s provided lodging and good home cooking to traveling salesmen, “had the insight that people want to feel as comfortable on the road as they do at home,” notes Heath. “All of his industry-shaping innovations offer the comforts and conveniences that make traveling easier.”
Consider that in 1930, for instance, Hilton’s Waldorf Astoria introduced the concept of room service. And in 1947, the Roosevelt Hilton in New York became the world’s first hotel to install televisions in its guest rooms. Then, in 1959, Hilton pioneered the concept of airport hotels with the San Francisco Airport Hilton, and in the ’60s, it came up with the minibar. Could today’s business travelers even imagine living without these conveniences? And leisure travelers would be bereft without another Hilton invention: the piña colada, born at the Caribe Hilton in Puerto Rico in 1954.
Today, Hilton continues to innovate. At the Hilton Malta’s bar, for example, guests simply push a button when they’d like to order; waiters are notified via smartwatches and can meet the guests’ needs almost immediately. Yet Hilton has perfected the art of not just catering to guests but also broadening their worlds, providing authentic cultural experiences in international locations, underlined by Hilton’s deep connection to each property’s surroundings. Hilton hotels become focal points, even icons, of their communities, from London to Buenos Aires to Sri Lanka. This is in part because whenever Hilton opens a new property, it makes a commitment to become part of the community around it, weaving itself into the local history, economy, and infrastructure.
The Hilton Ras al Khaimah Resort and Spa in the United Arab Emirates illustrates how significant this commitment can be, rising in the desert and opening in 2007 before other businesses were there. Hilton is often a pioneer, actually creating destinations where other businesses follow, or acting as a steadfast anchor when local economies experience turbulent times. Making it all possible, of course, are Hilton’s Team Members, who benefit from the powerful entrepreneurial spirit, autonomy, and wide-ranging career opportunities the company provides. Stories of people who rose from entry-level to executive positions include Dianna Vaughan, global head of DoubleTree by Hilton and Curio – A Collection by Hilton. Like founder Conrad Hilton, Vaughan was first exposed to the hospitality business by her family, helping out at her aunt’s roadside inn, where she later served as night manager. Both experiences influenced her exceptional career trajectory and leadership style.
As Team Members thrive in Hilton’s environment, so too does their creativity, leading to innovations across the company in every department and at every level—from line cooks and chefs to engineers and managers.
“With a milestone as significant as our 100th anniversary around the corner, we are welcoming more guests, employing more people, and opening more hotels than ever before,” says Nassetta. “Our impact will continue shape the globe for the next century and beyond.”