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Indeed, few corporations dominate their industries the way that Holiday Inns dominates the fast-growing business of lodging. Its success has lured a host of imitators into the motor-inn field: Howard Johnson's, ITT Sheraton, Marriott. Despite this competition, Holiday Inns has more than four times as many rooms as its closest rival in the hotel or motel field, Ramada Inns (see chart, page 81). Right now Wilson's company counts 208,939 rooms, with a total of more than 300,000 double beds.
Holiday Inns has ridden out front by offering a host of new services that Wilson devised to lure more and more travelers. Wilson's company was the first national chain to put up children at no cost when they share a room with parents, the first to offer free cribs for babies, as well as free TV sets and telephones in every room, a swimming pool at every motel and a kennel for traveling dogs. It was also the first to place ice machines and soft-drink machines in hallways, thus sparing the traveler the cost of room service. Today every Holiday Inn has a local doctor and dentist on call to treat guests at almost any hour. The chain even employs a full-time chaplain, the Rev. W.A. ("Dub") Nance, a Methodist. Among other things, he oversees a nationwide network of clergymen who volunteer spiritual counseling for guests at 820 inns; this group claims to have talked about 235 people out of committing suicide.
The company also lures traveling groups by welcoming them in big, bold letters on the marquee that adorns the towering sign at almost every Holiday Inn; WELCOME CICERO ELKS and similar greetings have become familiar sights. Says Wilson, who has a natural flair for crowd-pleasing showmanship: "People love to see their names on a billboard. Hell, they even come out and take pictures of it." Often the signs carry catchy, outrageously corny messages taken from a company book of sayings:
WE WORK FAST AND ACCURAT
THE MEDICAL SOCIETY IS CUTTING UP TONIGHT
KILROY WAS HERE, WHY DON'T YOU STOP TOO?
Wilson has built this empire in only 20 years, having started out with little more than an idea. A risk-taking entrepreneur in the age of prudent professional managers, he is a visible refutation of the common belief that a self-made man can no longer pile up great wealth in the modern, highly developed capitalist economy. Now Wilson has a personal fortune estimated to exceed $200 million. Three years ago, the Sunday Times of London listed him among the 1,000 most important men of the 20th century, along with Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt.