Pan Am founded Intercontinental Hotels. After all there needed to be places for American consumers to stay in the far flung destinations they served, and as a tool of US foreign policy.
At one point United Airlines owned both Hilton and Westin hotels as part of their attempt at horizontal integration in travel under the Allegis brand. United wouldn’t just sell airline tickets, they’d market the full trip to consumers.
But I’d forgotten that American Airlines had a hotel chain. American, of course, innovated along several dimensions founding several subsidiaries that are now independent companies, like the Sabre computer reservation system and the SkyChefs airline catering company (now LSG SkyChefs).
In 1972 American Airlines, through SkyChefs, leased the 50-story 1842 room Americana Hotel on 7th Avenue (between 52nd and 53rd) from Loews. They also leased the 722-room City Squire Motel on Broadway and the 447-room Americana Resort in Suan Juan along with the 715 room Americana Resort in Bal Harbour. That added to their collection of Ala Moana in Hawaii; Town House Hotel and Flagship Hotel in Rochester, New York; Inn at Six Flags in Arlington, Texas and Flagship Inn in Cincinnati.
Internationally American Airlines also owned El Presidente and Condessa del Mar in Acapulco and owned Fiesta Palace in Mexico City. Their reach even extended to the Chosun Hotel in Seoul the Flagship Beachcomber in Fiji.
These hotels were all merged under the Americana Hotels brand. At the start of 1979 New York’s Americana was sold and became a Sheraton, now the Sheraton New York Times Square Hotel.
Sheraton Times Square, Credit: Marriott
Later in 1979 the bulk of the Americana Hotels were acquired by Chicago-based Pick Hotels which by that time extended its reach into Aruba and Guatemala City as well.
Pick Hotels had already been sold to Bass three years earlier. Bass owned Holiday Inn and later added Intercontinental, Crowne Plaza and related brands essentially becoming IHG. The Desmond Hotel Crowne Plaza Albany, for instance, was once an American Airlines hotel.
This history is quite interesting. As far as the Intercontinental Hotel chain, that PanAm legacy is still visible in Latin America, where the best (and most well known) in many of the capital cities is an Intercontinental Hotel. Which obviously fit in with PanAm’s former Latin American routes. Stayed at many throughout Central America, and at the Tamanaco (an Intercontinental) in Caracas. A lot of 20th Century travel history there. However, I never realized that United and AA were involved in hotel brand ownership as well.
I stayed at the Desmond once about 20 years ago… Found it to be a lovely, quirky little airport hotel
Don’t forget, Trans World Airlines, through it’s holding company, owned Hilton International for a while.
United’s old strategy (Allegis) would actually be vertical integration. Horizontal integration would be: trying to own all of the airlines.
Fun to think what “Trans World Airlines” might look like today.
Gary—- it was Bass PLC (British owners of Bass Beer and pubs) not Bass Brothers, that owned Holiday Inn, etc.
“Fly American. Stay Americana,” that was the slogan featured in American’s timetables from that era.
@Large, Jonathan – I remember that! My Dad was a pilot for AA from 1949 to 1981…we stayed at many of the Americanas, including Acapulco and Mexico City.
I believe Hertz rental cars was also under the Allegis umbrella. Back in the day, I remember the Pan Am airline time tables that would have a star next to a city that had a Pan Am (or Intercontinental) hotel. KLM used to do the same with Golden Tulip Hotels, and SAS had their own SAS branded hotels too.
Pacific Southwest Airlines, where I started working in 1968, owned the Islandia Hotel in Mission Bay, San Diego.
Hilton International was spun off from Hilton in 1964, it was owned by several different entities including
Allegis until 2005 when Hilton bought back the International division. Alegis never owned the domestic properties. After the spin off of Hilton international only the domestic hotels remained. Today the company is known as Hilton worldwide. You may check Wikipedia, it has a more extensive discussion on this topic. Please be more careful in your reporting. Obviously you did not do much research.