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"Put Them In." The managers do it by putting every foot of hotel space to work. In the Plaza, Hilton's men converted a basement storage space into the swank Rendez-Vous Room, where New Yorkers and visitors now pay $500,000 a year to dine & dance. Stockbrokers E. F. Hutton & Co., who had been paying only $5,000 a year for valuable ground-floor space, were moved upstairs (for the same rent). In their place the original Oak Bar was restored; it now grosses $25,000 a month. When Williford saw the chance to make $18,000 a year by renting out small showcases, known as vitrines, in the lobby, he wired Hilton for an O.K. Hilton wired back: "I don't know what a vitrine is, but if they'll bring in that much, put them in." In the Palmer House, a bookstore that was paying a rent of $250 a month was replaced by a cocktail lounge grossing $2,000 a day. Employee locker space was centralized, making space for 50 additional rooms. In Hilton's first year, the Palmer House's operating profit rose $1,300,000 to $4,321,000. Hilton's men keep close tabs on food & beverages, figure that they saved $100,000 last year by careful menu-planning, and this year have spent $215,000 improving dining facilities in the Dayton Biltmore, alone. (In the Stevens, they discovered that only two orders for finnan haddie had been placed in one month, one by Vice President Herndon, the other by Hilton; off the menu went finnan haddie.)
Resort Trouble. Like all other hotel-men, Conrad Hilton is currently riding the crest of the wave. In most hotels, the trick is still to find a room and Hilton is confident that business will remain good for at least five years. Because of increased efficiency, the break-even point of Hilton hotels is now down to about 60% to 75% of capacity, as against a national average of 80%. For the first ten months of 1949, their operating profit totaled $6,886,108, slightly higher than last year.
Some hotelmen, who have enviously watched Hilton's amazing growth, darkly say that he has grown too fast. But Hilton points to his books in answer. Still remembering his collapse in the depression, Hilton has cut the total debt on his hotels from $32,806,000 in 1946 to $21,308,252 (not including the Waldorf), now owes nothing on the Stevens, the Mayflower or the Hilton Hotels in Lubbock and Albuquerque. He thinks he is as depression proof as any business can be.
Hilton's only recent flops have been in resort hotels. (He does not consider the Caribe Hilton primarily a resort hotel.) "Whenever you see an offer of a 'Hotel in the Pines,'" says he, "stay away from it." He bought the Palm Beach Biltmore, was glad to sell it for a net loss of $183,353, also lost money in a flyer in three Bermuda hotels.