Kemmons Wilson

Founder of Holiday Inns, Wilson World Hotels, and Wilson Inns

(1913 - 2003)

Kemmons Wilson entered the hotel industry by opening his first Holiday Inn on August 1, 1952 in Memphis, Tennessee. He revolutionized the industry by allowing children to stay for free and providing swimming pools, air conditioning, free cribs, telephones, television, ice and free parking. Wilson brought comfortable accommodations to the middle class at prices they could afford. Eleven Holiday Inns opened by the end of 1954. Five years later, the 100th Holiday Inn opened in Tallahassee - Apalachee, Florida on September 16, 1959.

The following year, the Holiday Innkeeping School, predecessor of the Holiday Inn University, was created to teach new innkeepers the "Holiday Inn Way." The Holiday Inn company expanded outside the United States in 1960 with the opening of Holiday Inn-Chateaubriand in Montreal, Canada. Additionally, in 1967, the Institutional Mart of America (IMA) opened in Holiday City, providing the company with its first year-round hotel supplies and equipment showplace.

On August 1, 1968, the 1,000th Holiday Inn opened in San Antonio, Texas, and the first European Holiday Inn opened on March 25 of the same year in Leiden, Holland. With the international expansion of Holiday Inn hotels, the corporate name was changed from Holiday Inns of America, Inc. to Holiday Inns, Inc. Furthermore, the familiar slogan, "The Nation's Innkeeper" was revised to "The World's Innkeeper."

The "World's Innkeeper" had an interesting philosophy. To Wilson, success meant never having to settle for anything less than excellent. He expressed that, "In this country, you don't have to settle for being average. . . you can dare to do better . . . and I challenge you to do this. Whatever your career choice, make your work count." (Saturday Evening Post, 1971)

By 1971, the Holiday Inn System became the first food and lodging chain in history to have facilities in operation in all 50 states. The company reached the 200,000-room mark in December of 1971, duplicating in less than five years a level of growth that had originally taken 15 years. In 1972, the grand opening of the world's largest Holiday Inn - with 719 rooms opened in May in Toronto, Canada twenty years after the first opening of the first Holiday Inn property.

In August 1989, the acquisition of Holiday Inn Corporation was completed by the Brtish-based Bass company. Today, there are more than 1,900 Holiday Inn hotels. The company's headquarters was moved from Memphis to Atlanta by Bass. The principles of customer service, quality and value are still very much in existence today. In 1982, Kemmons launched a new lodging company called Wilson World. The most recent property opened at the Dallas/Ft. Worth Airport.

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