Hospitality One history

The official conserving of our natural spaces began around the same time as the railway boom, and in 1885 Banff was established as Canada’s first national park.

Back in the United States • Back in the U. S. , hotel industry pioneers were developing the hotel chain. • In the early 1900 s Ellsworth Statler developed his chain of Statler hotels.

In the year 1919, Conard Hilton opened his first hotel in Texas.

In 1923, these three rail companies were amalgamated into the Canadian National Railway (CNR), and together with the CPR, these trans-continentals dominated the Canadian travel landscape until other forms of transportation became more popular.

Although Statler died in 1928, he and his wife, Alice, became the school’s founding benefactors.

Founded in 1930 and based in Ottawa, the Tourism Industry Association of Canada (TIAC) is the national private-sector advocate for the industry.

However, the world-famous Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, as it stands today, was opened in New York City in 1931.

It started in 1932 and ranks among the nation’s best.

Our national airline, Air Canada, was formed in 1937 as Trans-Canada Air Lines.

By 1938, the organization changed its name to the British Columbia Government Travel Bureau (BCGTB) and was granted a budget increase to $105,000.

So, in 1948, the Statler Foundation funded the construction of Statler Hall, including the Statler Inn, a 50-room “management laboratory.” A full-fledged School of Hotel Administration was established two years later.

That is how the first Holiday Inn started in the year 1952.

In 1954, Vancouver hosted the British Empire Games, investing in the construction of Empire Stadium.

When it was fully completed in 1970, it was the longest national highway in the world, spanning one-fifth of the globe (MacEachern, 2012). It would take decades before a coast-to-coast highway was created, with the Trans-Canada Highway officially opening in Revelstoke in 1962.

Since 1965, Russell and Dawson have been meeting and exceeding the expectations of our clients.

Formed in 1969, Leonard Parker Company was the largest independent provider of procurement services to owners, developers, and operators of hotel properties worldwide.

In 1971, the Hotel Room Tax Act was introduced, allowing for a 5% tax to be collected on room nights with the funds collected to be put toward marketing and development.

In 1973, it launched the industry’s first master’s degree program to give senior managers the knowledge and skills required to succeed in what had become an increasingly complex and global industry.

In 1978, with declining interest in rail travel, the CPR and CNR were forced to combine their passenger services to form VIA Rail (Library and Archives Canada, n.d.).

In the year 1980, the United Nations World Tourism Organization announced the day of September 27 as “World Tourism Day”. The idea of this celebration is to bring sustainability to the tourism sector all around the world.

In 1986, the 150-room full-service Statler Hotel & J. Willard Marriott Executive Education Center was built on the site of the original Statler Inn.

He starts off like the others buying one-off properties but then in 1997 executes a game changing move where he magically outbids Hilton for ITT Corp (Sheraton) at a whopping $14.3B. It’s now 1991; enter Barry Sternlicht and Starwood Capital Partners.

However, in 1994 Con Edison substantially reduced its rebate program, robbing Light Savers of its marketing strategy and thus reducing its income.

United Nations and World Tourism Organization. (1995). Recommendations on tourism statistics. [PDF] Retrieved from http://unstats.un.org/unsd/newsletter/unsd_workshops/tourism/st_esa_stat_ser_M_83.pdf

Expedia was founded from within Microsoft in 1996.

He starts off like the others buying one-off properties but then in 1997 executes a game changing move where he magically outbids Hilton for ITT Corp (Sheraton) at a whopping $14.3B.

In 1998, Hospitality Development Services was in the early stages of a joint venture with Prime Hospitality Corporation to develop 20 AmeriSuites over the next two years.

A numbered company, owned in part by Air Canada, purchased 82% of Canadian Airline’s shares, with the result of Air Canada becoming the country’s only national airline (Canadian Geographic, 2000).

Worldwide arrivals to Canada dropped 1% to 694 million in 2003, after three years of stagnant growth.

Some argue that as early as 1534 the explorers of the day, such as Jacques Cartier, were Canada’s first tourists (Dawson, 2004), but most agree the major developments in Canada’s tourism industry followed milestones in the transportation sector: by rail, by car, and eventually, in the skies.

LinkBC. (2008). Transforming communities through tourism: A handbook for community tourism champions. [PDF] Retrieved from http://linkbc.ca/siteFiles/85/files/TCTT.pdf

Five years later, the airport welcomed a record 16.4 million passengers (PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2009).

By the time the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games took place, over 80 participating countries, 6,000 athletes, and 3 billion viewers put British Columbia on centre stage.

In 2011, tourism created $78.8 billion in total economic activity and 603,400 jobs.

MacEachern, A. (2012, August 17). Goin’ down the road: The story of the first cross-Canada car trip.

Tourism Industry Association of Canada. (2014, October 14). Travel industry poised to boost Canadian exports: US market and border efficiencies central to growth potential.