Five Continents Hospitality history

Shortly after 1933--a year in which industry-wide hotel occupancy rates dropped to the lowest ever, 51%--they purchased the Continental in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

In the popular Van Loon's Geography of 1937, for example, the author describes the continental scheme with a light and almost humorous touch, concluding that one might as well use the standard system so long as one remembers its arbitrary foundations.

In 1948, Sheraton was the first to use the telex system for a reservations network.

Not content with simple domestic growth, Sheraton's international expansion began with the acquisition in 1949 of two Canadian hotel chains, the Laurentien Hotel Company and the Eppley chain.

Sheraton followed suit by building newer, more expensive hotels in 1957 as well as motor inns, partly in response to the development of interstate highways and increased air travel.

In 1958, it introduced Reservatron, the industry's earliest automated electronic reservation system, which made Sheraton the first hotel chain to centralize and computerize reservations.

In 1962, recognizing the merits of franchising and the prospective demand of other hotels to use Sheraton's well-known name along with its advanced reservation system, Sheraton followed the industry trend by forming a franchise division.

In 1967, Sheraton updated that system with Reservatron II, a computer system for personalized reservations.

In 1970, Sheraton was the first to institute a toll-free 800-number system, allowing customers direct access to reservations.

To take advantage of an aging United States population, Sheraton, in 1977, began offering a 25% discount to members of several senior citizens' organizations.

"Back in 1980 the Swissôtel name covered a number of separate hotels, each with their own individual identity.

In 1985, it signed an agreement to operate the Great Wall Sheraton Hotel, Beijing, the first hotel in China to bear the name of an international hotel company.

Standard requirements were upgraded as of 1989, including not only the new service standards and SGSS, but a new inspection program, life-safety standards, training, the upgrading of existing properties, and opportunities for future growth.

As of 1990, more than 20 corporately-managed and franchised hotels were scheduled to join the Sheraton network in North America.

In 2001, Swissôtel Hotels & Resorts was sold to Raffles Holdings Limited in Singapore shortly before Swissair was grounded.

Under the new umbrella brand, the corporate office of Swissôtel Hotels & Resorts moved back to Zurich, and since 2003 the German born Meinhard Huck has been President of the company.

In 2005, the Los Angeles based firm Colony Capital LLC, a global private investment group specialising in the management of real estate assets and companies, bought Raffles International, which at the time owned the Swissôtel and Raffles brands.

Then in May 2006, Colony Capital together with Kingdom Hotels International also acquired the Canadian hotel group Fairmont and founded the new hotel chain Fairmont Raffles Hotels International (FRHI) with its head office in Toronto, Canada.