Editor's Note: This story is a supplement to The Commercial Appeal's on coverage on top businesses that changed the world as part of America's 250th anniversary, focusing on the industry breakthroughs and innovators out of Memphis.
There was a time when Holiday Inn was one of the largest single employers in Memphis, when the massive international chain’s first hotel opened in 1952 on busy Summer Avenue in Memphis.
Although the company is no longer headquartered in the Bluff City but headquartered in Atlanta, its founder Kemmons Wilson's grandchildren are still carrying on what he started today.
That’s according to Spence Wilson Jr., Chairman of the Board at Kemmons Wilson Companies Management. Wilson said his grandfather Kemmons Wilson, who founded
Holiday Inn and KWC, transformed the hospitality industry after a disastrous hotel stay during an eight-person family road trip to D.C.
“Back in those days, there was no consistency in hotels,” Wilson said. “They finally find a hotel $6 a night … . Next morning, they go to check out. The innkeeper's like, wait a minute, you've got five kids in there? That's $2 per child. So with the surcharge $16 later, he's fuming, and he's thinking there's got to be a better way.”
Described by his grandson as a “man of action,” Wilson was already coming up with ideas for his hotel on the drive home, and within a single year, Holiday Inn was open.
Growth was swift.
In just six years there were 50 US locations, and by 1964 there was a staggering 500 locations. Kemmons Wilson attributed some of that growth to luck. The Federal-Aid Highway Act passed in 1956, creating the highway system we know today, and with it, driving up the number of traveling families and workers in need of a place to stay.
But luck doesn’t take a brand to the top of its industry on its own.
Kemmons Wilson channeled his “frustration” with how poorly hotels then operated to make the changes he personally wanted when he traveled. That included a risky $8 million investment in a phone reservation system, the world’s first, and the less essential but still charming — a popcorn machine in every lobby.
“You had restaurants and you had pools in the hotels, so that was obviously not common, you had ice machines, kids under 18 staying with their parents with no surcharge,” Wilson said. “If you came in off the road, and for whatever reason the hotel was occupied, every innkeeper had an obligation to call all around town until they found you a hotel room.”
Early entrepreneurial path to success
Kemmons Wilson’s quick success didn’t come in a vacuum. He started his entrepreneurial path delivering newspapers and recruiting other neighborhood kids to help him in exchange for a cut. By the time he was 14, he was selling concessions at his local movie theater at a time before it was common practice. When the theater owner felt his business was getting upstaged, he kicked Wilson out, and he vowed never to work for someone else again.
Real estate, WW II and refusal to dwell on worry
Among many later side gigs in sales, Wilson gathered his initial fortune in homebuilding, though newly amassed wealth didn’t stop him from flying with the USAAF in India during World War II.
Spence Wilson said his grandfather’s success comes down to core personality traits of curiosity, and refusal to dwell or worry.
“He dropped out of high school to help his mom make ends meet during the Depression, but he was armed with insatiable curiosity to know the who, what, why and how of everything and everyone. Not having a formal education, he was never afraid to ask the proverbial dumb questions. He became a life learner, and one of the smartest people I knew by the time he died at age 90.”
Holiday Inn sets standard
Holiday Inn was the standard for which other hotel chains found themselves copying for decades, but there were still some aspects, such as its iconic sign, that other hotels could never capture.
“It became synonymous with relief and security – I think for families it became somewhat of a beacon,” Wilson said. “One of the old slogans back in the day was ‘the best surprise is no surprise. He really did want to help families and business travelers’ de-risk the hotel proposition of [their] journey.”
Today, Holiday Inn is under the wing of IHG Hotels & Resorts, and boasts an army of over 1,200 hotels.
Community-focused, wanting Memphis to reach 'full potential'
Though it has not been headquartered in Memphis since 1991, Wilson and Holiday Inn built deep ties to the community in those nearly 40 years. Along with being one of, if not the largest single employer in Memphis, according to Spence Wilson, the founder was friends with and worked closely with FedEx founder Fred Smith, had contacts at AutoZone and many other local entrepreneurs.
Memphis still remains a key part of the Holiday Inn legacy, but at the same time, a very active piece in what Wilson hopes to continue to achieve with KWC’s partnerships.
“There's a lot of change agents in this city, and that's why we choose to still be here, because a lot of people are really interested in seeing Memphis reach full potential,” he said. “Memphis is really starting to try to seize its destiny that I say has been out there waiting on us all these years. And what we finally realized is, nobody [else is] gonna do it. It's up to Memphians to go determine who we want to be … and that’s inspiring and invigorating and energizing for me.”
While the family no longer has a hand in Holiday Inn directly, the third generation has run KWC since 2014, and has ownership in Holiday Inn Club Vacations. Wilson said his brother and cousins have managed to avoid the all-too-common "pitfalls" of third generation businesses, and that has a lot to do with how close the family has always been.
Grounded in family, giving back
His grandmother Dorothy gathered the family every Sunday for dinner without fail, and his generation still takes annual trips together. But it ultimately comes down to how “grounded” the family is, and the “sound, solid, loving relationships” they still enjoy today.
“Somehow, some way, third generation [business owners] wake up one day and think somehow they deserve all this. And so we were really good to keep entitlement outside the mindset in this family,” Wilson said. “We had nothing to do with what’s been created, we have everything to do with stewarding the legacy forward and trying to enhance that which has been given to us.”
Carrying on the legacy of Kemmons Wilson is both a calling and major responsibility for Wilson, and it requires a multifaceted approach – in who he creates relationships with, the causes and goals he chooses to help advance, and the mindset from which goals are set.
“If there’s a legacy, it’s … how does it bring value to something or somebody else other than myself,” he said. “I think the true meaning of life is about relationships. It’s about, how do you engage with others, lift others up, help others? When you start to do it unconditionally, it gets pretty addictive. It’s mind-blowing how much you get back in return. The network, the people, experiences, and then the true joy of seeing people flourish.”
Jacob Wilt is a reporter for The Commercial Appeal covering Dining, Retail and Real Estate in the Memphis area. You can reach him at jacob.wilt@commercialappeal.com.
This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: 'Man of action': How Holiday Inn shaped the hotel industry, and Memphis still benefits
