Chances are if you have travelled you have seen or maybe even stayed at a Hilton hotel.The Hiltons owned the chain of the hotels which was founded by Conrad Hilton and among the books which document the success of the family is The Hiltons – The True Story of an American Dynasty by J Randy Taraborrelli published by Grand Central Publishing, NY, 2014. The book describes the family from the early days in Texas to one of the better from Conrad to Baron and Nicky to their sons to Paris Hilton. The chain was eventually sold and the family runs a large foundation.

After world war 2, the United States emerged as the most important country in the world and with a growing middle income group who wanted to travel.Conrad Hilton and his team began to build hotels beside airports for travellers convenience and they were generally profitable operations. Another area of growth was international – in the 1950’s the State Department and Department of Commerce encouraged hoteliers including Hilton to open a hotel in Purerto Rico. The government of the country would build the hotel, then lease it to an American business who would use American knowhow and technology to run it. This was hoped to cause tourism to increase. Hilton won the contract and tourism did increase, because the expectation all the conveniences expected in America would found in the Hilton. The Hilton followed the trends in the hotel industry with hotels in Las Vegas (for a while they were the most profitable ones as they are connected to a casino). Buying older hotels that had been and could be prime hotels again meant real estate values increased. As well as every business knows keeping costs down and trying to make it easier for a hotel user to transition to other add on such as credit cards, to airlines, were part of the Hilton legacy.

Linking to dividend paying stocks similar to 1950’s government can help, in Hilton’s case the Department of Commerce played a role. Now days it will be the city or state level which will help bring a hotel to the city. For once a hotel opens it can be considered a small or medium sized business (depending on the size of the hotel). Each hotel typically has a market it is segmenting – the airport traveller, the downtown business person, banquets, conferences. ideally somebody who does repeat business. Repeat business is similar to receiving a dividend payment on a stock – as long as the company is doing well and staying profitable it can pay a dividend. There are always many variables in the marketplace which makes staying profitable over a long period of time a great achievement, and as an investor you can share in the good management by receiving a dividend.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions