History has not been kind to Kemmons Wilson, who gave the world a plain-Jane motel-hotel chain called Holiday Inn. Competitors Conrad Hilton, Bill Marriott, Cesar Ritz, even Howard Johnson, all achieved brand-name immortality in the hospitality trade. But when Wilson checked into the big hotel in the sky two years ago at 90, he was hardly a household word - except in Memphis, where he is a local legend second only to Elvis.
Yet Wilson's brainstorm of a roadside inn with clean sheets, rooms starting at $4 a night and no extra cost for kids may have bedded down more traveling salespeople and vacationing families in the last half century than all his rivals combined. A high school dropout who borrowed $50 to pop and sell fresh popcorn in movie theaters in the Depression, Wilson was a jovial hotshot real estate agent in Memphis who made his first fortune building large homes at moderate prices.
In 1951, he took his wife and their five children on a driving vacation to Washington, D.C. Plane travel was too expensive, even for a wealthy guy like Wilson, but gasoline was cheap and he was frugal. So when a roadside motel tried to charge him $2 a head for each of his youngsters, he vowed to start his own hotel company and did in 1952.
Today, Wilson would probably chuckle to know that one of his offsprings, Holiday Inn Express, is suddenly hip with the Fortune 500 crowd. What sounds like a stripped-down, grab-a-fast-snooze motel is becoming the bunkhouse of choice for many business travelers who work for IBM, Microsoft, General Electric and Hewlett Packard, among other multinationals. I recently overnighted at the Holiday Inn Express in Newport Beach, Calif., and was surprised to find top guns with marquee corporations were regulars at $89 a night and up.
My greeting was a bigger surprise. I was half expecting to slip my credit card through a slit in thick glass to register, but I found two genial chaps behind the small front desk in a Spartan lobby. They seemed happy enough to see me and while I checked in for my first-ever visit, I was given a verbal tour, plus two apples and a cup of coffee. It was an immediate money-saver because there is no valet, doorman or bellman to tip and parking is free.
Holiday Inn Express, known to insiders as HiEx, won't damage a business traveler's wallet. In-room, high-speed Internet, local phone calls and 800-number calls are free. Some of the 1,500 links in the chain have self-serve business centers, but only if the owner-franchisee is willing to pay for it. The Newport Beach franchisee hasn't ponied up yet but supposedly will be adding a large facility later this year with four PCs, two laser printers, a copier and fax. Until then, I found a helpful 24-hour Kinko's about 10 minutes away.
Room decor will not be winning interior design plaudits anytime soon, but all have a spacious desk and decent chair. HiEx is spending $20 million to dress up all its bathrooms with a new Kohler shower head, thick terry cloth towels and the currently stylish curved shower rod, but don't expect one of those plush beds piled high with pillows and duvets like Hilton Garden Inn, Hampton or Marriott Courtyard is trumpeting.
However, it's spotlessly clean and doesn't have that strange smell you sniff in many lower-priced hotels and motels that use an industrial antiseptic cleaner to wash down the carpets and walls. Every morning a cold buffet breakfast is set up, but watch out for the delicious artery-clogging cinnamon rolls slathered with icing. The coffee is OK, but it could be a lot richer. Otherwise, the raisin bran is fresh, the price is right and there's no waiting.
One reason this HiEx seems especially welcoming is the general manager, Salvador Padilla. He is young but spent nine years with Four Seasons where he learned how to pamper powerful pooh-bahs.
"I started at the very bottom at Four Seasons, shining shoes overnight, and was promoted to guest service manager and then concierge. I've also been assistant manager at a Comfort Inn," he said.
Padilla's training in luxury and budget lodging serves him well here. His acquired skills in caring for the worldly and wealthy is paying off here in a novel way. Newport Beach is chockablock with plastic surgeons and Padilla says a steady stream of newly lifted, implanted and tucked patients sequester themselves in his Holiday Inn Express to recuperate, confident they will never bump into their friends.
Interestingly, I bumped into a chief executive who was sitting poolside brainstorming with his marketing consultant. Faisal Nazir, president of Huper Optik in Houston, makers of commercial window coatings, was smoking an expensive cigar and singing the praises of his first visit to Holiday Inn Express.
"We usually stay at Four Seasons Newport Beach, but this is clean, the service is excellent, the location (across the street from Balboa Bay) is perfect and it has a gym and a pool," he said. "I don't mind spending money but I want great value for my money. I also like the attitude of the staff."
Nazir finds that sitting around the hotel's small pool in the late afternoon on a weekday when it's deserted is more productive for brainstorming than being closeted in a meeting room. "The ideas flow," he said.
Who knows, maybe Wilson's creativity may rub off. According to Holiday Inn's corporate lore, he was the first hotelier to air condition a guest room, install in-room phones, offer free ice and charge a rate based on the room, not how many people stayed in it.
Wilson, a success and stickler for hard work, was no snob personally or professionally. Just before he died in 2003, he served up one of his folksy homilies. "You can cater to the rich people, and I'll take the rest. The good Lord made more of them."
Chris Barnett writes on business-travel strategies that save time and money.
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