Sheraton Hotels and Resorts

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Sheraton Hotels and Resorts
Subsidiary
Industry Hospitality
Founded 1937; 87 years ago (1937)
Springfield, Massachusetts, U.S.
Founders Ernest Henderson
Robert Moore
Headquarters Bethesda, Maryland
Number of locations
 463[1] (September 2020)
Number of employees
 145,000[2]
Parent Marriott International
Website sheraton.com

Sheraton Hotels and Resorts is an international semi-luxury hotel chain owned by Marriott International. As of June 30, 2020, Sheraton operates 446 hotels with 155,617 rooms globally, including locations in North America, Africa, Asia Pacific, Central and South America, Europe, the Middle East and the Caribbean, in addition to 84 hotels with 23,092 rooms in the pipeline.[3]

History

Early years

The origins of Sheraton Hotels date to 1933, when Harvard classmates Ernest Henderson and Robert Moore purchased the Continental Hotel in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

In 1937, Henderson and Moore purchased the Standard Investing Corporation and the International Equities Corporation, combining them into the Standard Equities Corporation,[4] the company through which they would run their hotels. Also in 1937, they purchased their second hotel, and the first as part of the new company, the Stonehaven Hotel in Springfield, Massachusetts, a converted apartment building.

The chain got its name from the third hotel the pair acquired, in Boston, in 1939.[5] It had a large lighted sign on the roof saying "Sheraton Hotel," which was too expensive to change. Instead, Henderson and Moore decided to call all of their hotels by that name.[6]

Henderson and Moore purchased Boston's famed Copley Plaza Hotel in 1941, and continued expanding rapidly, buying existing properties along the East Coast from Maine to Florida.[5]

In 1946, the Standard Equities Corporation merged with the United States Realty and Improvement Corporation, forming the Sheraton Corporation of America,[5] which became the first hotel chain to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1947.[7]

Expansion

In 1949, Sheraton expanded internationally, buying the Ford Hotels chain, with three properties in Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal.[8][9] They quickly resold the Toronto and Ottawa properties to finance their continued Canadian expansion in 1950, paying $4.8 million to purchase Cardy Hotels, a chain of six properties in Ontario and Quebec.[10]

In 1956, Sheraton paid $30 million to buy the Eppley Hotel Company, which was then the largest privately held hotel business in the United States, with 22 properties across six Midwestern states.[11] Sheraton retained ten of the largest hotels and immediately resold the other twelve. That same year, Sheraton acquired its first motels, purchasing two properties in the suburbs of Syracuse, New York.[5]

In 1957, Sheraton, which had previously focused on acquiring existing hotels, opened its first newly built hotel, the Philadelphia Sheraton Hotel.[12]

In 1958, Sheraton became the first hotel chain to centralize and computerize its reservations when it introduced Reservatron, the hotel industry's first automatic electronic reservations system.[13]

In 1959, Sheraton acquired its first properties outside North America, purchasing four hotels owned by the Matson Lines on Waikiki Beach in Honolulu, Hawaii.[14] That same year[15] Sheraton opened its first newly built motel, marketed as a "Highway Hotel," the Sheraton Inn, located in Binghamton, New York.[16]

The early 1960s saw the arrival of the first Sheraton hotels outside the US and Canada, with the opening of the Sheraton-Tel Aviv Hotel in Israel in March 1961; the Sheraton-Kingston Hotel in Jamaica,[17] and the Sheraton-British Colonial Hotel in Nassau, Bahamas, both in 1962; and the Macuto-Sheraton Hotel outside Caracas, Venezuela, in 1963.

In 1962, Sheraton created a franchise division, primarily to operate Sheraton Motor Inns, large highway motels providing free parking.[18]

In 1965, the 100th Sheraton property, the Sheraton-Boston Hotel, opened.[7]

In 1966, Sheraton opened its first hotel in the Middle East, the Kuwait-Sheraton Hotel.[19]

In 1967, Sheraton unveiled Reservatron II, a computer system for personalized reservations.[13] That same year, Sheraton opened its first hotel in Asia, the Sheraton-Philippines Hotel in Manila; its first hotel in Europe, the Sheraton-Du Cap Hotel on the island of Corsica in France; and its first hotels in Australia, two Sheraton Motor Hotels in Melbourne and Sydney.[19]

ITT Purchase

The multinational conglomerate ITT purchased the chain in 1968. That same year, ITT sold eighteen aging Sheraton properties.[20] Under ITT's ownership, Sheraton quickly moved away from ownership and operation of its properties to a new model of franchising and management, as the chain expanded greatly both in the US and abroad.[21]

In late 1969, Sheraton introduced the hotel industry's first[13] nationwide toll-free number, which displaced two hundred local Sheraton reservation numbers.[22][23] The radio jingle for "Eight-Oh-Oh, Three-Two-Five, Three-Five Three-Five"[24][25] "ran throughout the decade and into the eighties" but the jingle's lifespan went even beyond.[26]

In 1970, Sheraton introduced the Sheraton Towers concept, a line of luxury "hotel-within-a-hotel" facilities designed for business travelers and located within Sheraton's largest and most exclusive hotels. The first Sheraton Towers to open was in the chain's flagship Sheraton-Boston Hotel.[21]

From 1977 to 1997 the company was headquartered at 60 State Street in Boston.

In 1985, Sheraton became the first western chain to operate a hotel bearing the name of an international company[lower-alpha 1]in the People's Republic of China, when it assumed management of the Great Wall Hotel in Beijing, a financially troubled two-year-old Chinese-American joint venture,[29] which became the Great Wall Sheraton.[30]

By 1987, The New York Times described it as "50 years old, the world's largest hotel chain, and .. consumer-driven."[31]

The chain was rebranded as ITT Sheraton in 1990.

ITT Sheraton Luxury Collection

On January 13, 1992, ITT Sheraton designated 28 of its premier hotels and 33 of the Sheraton Towers as the ITT Sheraton Luxury Collection.[32] The flagship of the division was The St Regis in New York City.

In 1994, ITT Sheraton purchased a controlling interest in the Italian CIGA chain, the Compagnia Italiana Grandi Alberghi, or Italian Grand Hotels Company.[33] The chain had begun by operating hotels in Italy, but over-expanded across Europe just as a recession hit, and had been seized from its previous owner, the Aga Khan, by its creditors.[34] The majority of these hotels were placed in the ITT Sheraton Luxury Collection, though a few were placed in the Sheraton division.

Four Points by Sheraton

In April 1995, ITT Sheraton introduced a new, mid-range hotel brand, Four Points by Sheraton, to replace the designation of certain hotels as Sheraton Inns.[35]

Starwood purchase

In 1998, Starwood acquired ITT Sheraton for $13.3 billion, topping an offer by rival Hilton.[36] Under Starwood's leadership, Sheraton began renovating many hotels and expanding the brand's footprint.[37]

Starwood also began marketing The Luxury Collection as a completely separate brand, even though it contained a large number of hotels still named Sheraton. Most of those properties have since been renamed. Only three such hotels remain today - Sheraton Addis in (Addis Ababa, Ethiopia), Sheraton Grande Sukhumvit in (Bangkok, Thailand), and Sheraton Kuwait in (Kuwait City, Kuwait).

Also in 1998, Sheraton joined with the Arabella Hospitality Group in Germany to create ArabellaSheraton,[38] a joint venture under which 14 Arabella Hotels in Germany, Switzerland and Spain were rebranded as ArabellaSheraton Hotels.[39]

In 1999, Sheraton bought the outstanding shares in CIGA, giving it complete ownership.[40]

Marriott purchase

In 2016, Marriott International purchased Starwood Hotels, and the newly merged company again became the world's largest hotel and resort company.[31] Although the Sheraton brand expresses quality in Asia, aging properties have made the US market more problematic.[41]

Accommodations

(Sheraton only. Excludes The Luxury Collection and Four Points by Sheraton)

North
America		  Europe  Middle E.
& Africa		 Asia &
Pacific		 Caribbean
Latin Am.		 Total
2016[42] Properties 196 62 30 123 38 449
Rooms 74,350 17,069 10,015 47,207 10,183 158,824
2017[43] Properties 192 62 30 122 35 441
Rooms 73,074 16,847 10,236 46,143 9,450 155,750
2018[44] Properties 190 61 31 123 36 441
Rooms 72,674 16,580 10,408 46,073 9,882 155,617
2019[45] Properties 189 62 31 130 35 447
Rooms 72,039 17,054 9,910 47,878 9,682 156,563
2020[46] Properties 183 62 30 136 31 442
Rooms 70,245 16,900 9,299 49,399 8,613 154,456
2021[47] Properties 178 57 33 139 30 437
Rooms 68,824 16,008 9,699 50,315 8,396 153,242

Sponsorships

Gallery

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels had opened the Jianguo Hotel in Beijing in 1982[27] and Holiday Inn had opened the Beijing Lido Hotel in 1984,[28] but neither hotel operated under the name of an international chain as of 1985.

References

  1. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ "Profile: Sheraton Hotels and Resorts", Hoover's
  3. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  9. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  10. ↑ Hilda M. Cardy v. Vernon G. Cardy, 6037 (N.Y. App. Div. 1955).
  11. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  12. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  15. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  16. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  17. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  18. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  20. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  22. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  23. ↑ Time, Newsweek and BusinessWeek (1970, various issues) ran advertising boasting "800-325-3535. Sheraton Hotels and Motor Inns announce the reservation number to end all reservation numbers. 800-325-3535 The one reservation number for all Sheraton Hotels and Motor Inns in the world. 800-325-3535 Call it free. Anytime from anywhere in the Continental United States. 800-325-3535. Call it as you would any long distance number from your area. 800-325-3535 Call it free anytime and you'll get an immediate confirmation. 800-325-3535 Call it ... or your travel agent will call it for you. Sheraton Hotels & Motor Inns - A WORLDWIDE SERVICE - ITT"
  24. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  25. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  26. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  27. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  28. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  29. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  30. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  31. ↑ 31.0 31.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  32. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  33. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  34. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  35. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  36. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  37. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  38. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  39. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  40. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  41. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  42. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  43. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  44. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  45. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  46. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  47. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links

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