Time was when the hotel industry mixed glamour and high finance in an intoxicating cocktail that attracted the most flamboyant entrepreneurs of the past century -- Conrad Hilton, Richard D'Oyly Carte, Cesar Ritz. But check in today at thousands of U.S. hostelries, including Hiltons, Sheratons and Marriotts, and your innkeeper will belong to a far more somber group: Citicorp, Wells Fargo Bank, Travelers insurance and others.
The jokes are inevitable -- it takes a month to get your reservation approved; no room service after 3 p.m. -- but the banks and insurance companies aren't amused. They are in the hotel business...
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