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Gifts for Brides. Holiday Inns' canny management is matched by its aggressive marketing. For example, it uses its Holidex reservation system to find out which areas produce the most bookings, then directs its heaviest advertising to them. Each motel manager is expected to make at least five sales calls a week, visiting local civic and fraternal clubs to hymn the benefits of using his inn for meetings. Some managers cull newspapers for engagement announcements, and send bracelets and other gifts to prospective brides, along with a pitch to honeymoon at Holiday Inns.
That touch of larceny that is supposed to be in everybody costs Holiday Inns a substantial amount each year in missing sheets, towels and utensils. Most inns have some defenses. For example, pictures are usually screwed tightly to the wall. At many motels, a light goes on at the front desk if a television set is unplugged. All bills are presented when they reach $50; though most people do not have to settle until they leave, this policy gives the desk clerk a chance to demand immediate payment if the guest looks like a deadbeat.
Protecting its guests against thieves is difficult for any hostelry. Clothing and behavior are not the social indicators they once were, and security men are reluctant to move on any but the most suspicious-looking characters. Meanwhile, thieves are getting ever more sophisticated. Until it was caught, one ring, operating out of Montreal, made regular sweeps by jet, knocking over airport motels in New York, Washington, Miami or Puerto Rico—and getting home each day in time for dinner.
Permissive social values have reduced promiscuity as a problem for motel men. Often an unmarried couple will register for the same room under their own names and dare the clerk to say anything. Holiday Inns' policy is to turn down couples only when they are from the local community and known not to be married. Many motels and hotels make no effort at all to check. Loew's Corp. President Preston Tisch remembers ruefully when his teen-age son was working behind the desk of the Americana in Manhattan. Says Tisch: "He wouldn't check in one unmarried couple. They went to the Hilton and we lost $30. I fired him."
More Than Money. For Wilson, the challenges of the motel business remain even more tempting than charred steak dripping with Tabasco sauce, and he expects to remain in the top job at Holiday Inns for many years. He also has a sense of mission and sees the role of his company as more than a great money machine. Says he: "I think we can do more for world peace through tourism and building Holiday Inns around the world than anything else. We get to know other people and they get to know us and that's good."
There is one other thing keeping Wilson from retirement. Inside the dynamic, socially committed tycoon lurks a youngster who never quite got over his love affair with land. "There's no one who loves land more than me," he admits. For that kind of man, no job in the world could offer more: a chance to chase daylight round the world, clambering over hills, slogging through rain forests, stalking through prairie grass in a never-ending hunt for the perfect motel site, Kemmons Wilson's ultimate golden egg.