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Drenched Chefs. Once the hotels open, the bugs that develop during the shakedown period can reach plague proportions. Except for the top supervisory people, Hilton overseas hires locals almost exclusively. In Cairo it broke tradition by hiring women to wait on table. The girls were reluctant at first and flatly refused to wear frilly aprons because they are a symbol of service. Now the jobs are coveted not so much for the higher pay as for the chance to meet eligible men. In Athens a maid who was warned to be thorough in her cleaning dismantled a guest's electric razor so completely that it could not be put back together again.
The Hong Kong Hilton was nearing its opening date when authorities discovered that the $100,000 worth of Chinese furniture and decorations in the hotel had been imported from Red China in violation of U.S. law that American citizens cannot deal with the Red Chinese; it all had to be replaced with substitutes. In London the automatic-elevator doors closed so fast, the telephones worked so sporadically and the Muzak system sometimes shrieked so loudly that Hilton had to dispatch experts from the U.S. to straighten things out. The air-conditioning failed in one of the New York Hilton's kitchens, driving the heat up so high that it set off the fire sprinklers and drenched the chef and the food. Someone discovered that the automatic billing system liked to drop decimals after one guest was charged $3,850 for a telephone call.
No Brash Intruder. Most cities around the world are delighted to have a Hilton, and scores vie for them. A Hilton is a boon to the tourist business, since many Americans (who make up about 50% of all Hilton's guests) will go more readily to a city where they can find a modern hotel with a reassuringly familiar name. Egypt's take from tourism increased $12 million a year after Hilton moved in; Turkey gained $2.5 million in foreign exchange. A Hilton usually forces other hotels in the area to improve their standards (their celebrated old-fashioned personal service sometimes gets a little inattentive). In such cities as Istanbul, Cairo and Amsterdam, the Hilton has become a social center for politicians, businessmen and local society. "Now a country's reputation is made with Cadillacs, an airline and a Hilton hotel," says one Hilton executive. "That's the credential to get into the United Nations."
For all their modernity, Hilton hotels try to strike a local note in each country; regional themes and regional materials are used (often quite tastefully), and local architects and artisans are employed whenever possible. Hilton also likes to put regional foods on his menus (his chefs in Teheran dug deep into history books, say his flacks, to come up with marinated filets apadana prepared just the way Xerxes ate them in 470 B.C.). But this has to be done sparingly: the U.S. guests do not want anything too outlandish, and many of the locals think it more sophisticated to eat European cuisine. "Far from being the brash intruder," wrote Nigel Buxton in Britain's Spectator, "Hilton is probably more concerned than any other international hotel operator to suit his projects to the local scene."