Hospitality History: 1950-2012

  • Kemmons Wilson opens the first Holiday Inn in Memphis, Tennessee

  • American Airlines C.R. Smith and IBM’s R. Blair Smith meet and forge an alliance to improve the Reservisor system

  • J.W. Marriott opens first motel, Twin Bridges

  • SABRE was completed

  • Delta’s DATAS launches

  • The first ARPANET link is create between the University of California and Stanford University

  • United’s Apollo launches

  • TWA’s PARS launches

  • First recorded use of the term Internet in December by the Network Working Group

  • TCP/IP transmission protocol makes debut

  • AOL and Prodigy emerge as dial-in networks for e-mail, brought by CompuServe

  • Air France and Lufthansa develop the Amadeus CRS

  • Videcom, the first multi-access global reservations system is migrated into the Galileo CRS

  • First mobile phone the Nokia 9000 Communicator is launched in Finland

  • Delta, Trans World and Northwest Airlines form Worldspan

  • British Airways, KLM and United create Galileo based on the Apollo platform

  • Blackberry launches the first phone-based e-mail delivery system

  • Travel declines 80% due to attacks on WTC and Pentagon

  • Travelport, owner of Galileo purchases Worldspan and immediately controls 46% of the travel agency market

  • The Hospitality Performance Group (HPG) is launched; begins electronic marketing

  • One of HPG’s 1st clients beats all competitors in the Orlando market for occupancy and RevPar in Q-1

  • PromoNet® promotional couponing solution has been chosen as the winner in the "revenue generation"