Posted on 12/25/2005 11:42:40 PM PST by CarrotAndStick
Dallas, April 29: Today's great American hotel owner is more likely to be named Patel and have roots that extend to the Indian state of Gujarat, than to be named Trump and lay claim to premier properties in the New York area.
Immigrants from India, almost all with ties to Gujarat, have become a dominant force in the US hotel industry.
They own about half of the US economy lodging facilities and almost 37 per cent of all hotel properties here, according to the Asian American Hotel Owners Association (AAHOA), based in Atlanta.
This means that if a traveller stops at a Days Inn along Interstate 95 on the way to Washington, a Best Western in rural Montana, or a Holiday Inn Express near Dallas, there is about a 50 per cent chance the hotel is owned by an individual or the family of an immigrant from India.
"The first group found opportunities in the lodgings industry, more by accident than by design," said Hitesh Bhakta, chairman of the AAHOA at the group's convention held in late April at a suburban Dallas hotel.
Indians from Gujarat started to buy into lower-end US hotels in the 1960s and 1970s, when US immigration laws granted residency for new arrivals who invested about $10,000 to run a business. The ethnic group now owns about 20,000 hotels -- about 1 million rooms -- in 50 states.
The first hotels purchased were in run-down areas and typically at the bottom end of the industry, but they did provide the new immigrants with a place to live on the premises. All that was required was for a family to be on call 24 hours a day and be ready to work to keep the hotel operating smoothly.
INVESTING IN VACANCIES
As with many ethnic groups that find a niche in the marketplace, word spread about the opportunities in US hotels.
Most of the immigrants working in the lodgings industry are named Patel, a common surname in Gujarat, said to mean "village chief."
The immigrants also proved themselves to be an extremely low credit risk, making it possible for thousands to invest $10,000 or $20,000 or so as a down payment in a hotel property worth about $100,000 to $120,000.
"The network gave them a business plan," said Bhakta.
"They didn't need consultants. All a potential investor had to do was call up his uncle and ask, 'How much should I pay and is this a good market?'," he said.
In the 1970s, the number of Indians in US lodging expanded greatly. The gasoline crisis in the mid 1970s led to a drop in domestic travel, which increased the investment opportunities in roadside hotels. Indian investors could afford to acquire more properties because they were cheaper.
Immigration laws have changed over the years, making it much more difficult and expensive for new arrivals to gain US residency status by investing in a business, but Indian-Americans had already established a strong presence in the market.
BUYING THE RITZ
The industry group AAHOA was formed in 1989 partly in response to some hotel owners trying to take business away from hotels owned by Indian immigrants by placing an "American owned" sign outside their establishments.
Now, because of the strong presence of Indian immigrants in the industry and tougher rules from hotel franchise operators, the practice of playing on ethnic differences has largely disappeared.
The children of the first generation of hotel owners have taken the path followed by many other second-generation immigrants. Some have shied away from the industry because of the demanding work, while others have gained entree to running more upscale lodging facilities by enrolling in renowned hotel schools at Cornell or New York University or earning advanced degrees in business administration.
"We are turning out a lot of second-generation hotel owners," said Chekitan Dev, a professor of marketing at Cornell's School of Hotel Administration. "They are using their education to take their business to the next level."
One of the many success stories is H.P. Rama, who started with a small investment and took over a 37-room hotel in Pomona, California. He is now the head of JHM Hotels, which runs 32 properties, with 5,000 rooms, in nine states. A founding chairman of AAHOA, he has also served as chairman of the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA).
Rama said he sees an ever-growing presence of Indian Americans at all levels of the US hotel business in the years ahead.
"I have no doubt that the second generation will dominate the lodging industry in this country in all segments of the market," Rama said.
I should point out that Henry Ford never allowed Ford to go public.
His son Edzel did that.
One of the most misunderstood quotes by HF is: "The Public be damned."
He didn't mean by this that he wasn't interested in public opiinion. He built cars that the public wanted.
Ford came out of the depression in the best economic condition of all three of the American car makers.
Crysler's Airflow almost bankrupted the company in 1936 when Ford was producing the only V8 powered automobile.
What Ford meant by his famous statement was: "This is my company and I'll run it the way I see fit and I'm not turning it over to a penny investor in Peoria."
Really, I thought the Ford quote: "I'll take my factory down brick by brick before I'll let any of those jew speculators get stock in the company."
No he did say "The public be damned."
He may also have said what you have quoted.
In any event after WWII Ford was the only automaker in private hands.
He was something of an odd duck. The anti-semitism went beyond the usual Wall Street WASP variety. He actually paid to publish the protocols of the elders of zion in this country. Hitler actually had a signed picture of him up in his office. He was anti-union, but also weirdly intrusive into his employees' lives. His Sociological Dept. would actually inspect the homes of workers.
He was also a good engineer in both mechanical and organizational terms. Not many guys could go from tinkering in their garage to running a major corporation.
Unfortunately, we live in an age where people either want to hear fairytales about perfect beings or tout the flaws of notable individuals to denigrate their positive contributions. Both make for boring history.
One of the more interesting stories, which may or may not be true, is that HF had a stroke while screening newsreels of concentration camp liberation. Assuming it is true, the engineer in him would have instinctively understood the mechanics of the camps and been appalled by it.
African Americans could have done this. Should have done this. If their "leaders" had fostered group-identity as a business model, instead of a model for Righteous Victimhood, they would have done this, or something like it. It's the model the Ibo use in West Africa, and it's the model described here being used by the people from India.
If you tally up all the costs of missed opportunity, the greatest evil in the history of the African American people is the leadership that led them away from organized business activity to the worship of welfare state victim identity.
The history of companies doing business with Hitler etc isn't as interesting as the history of human beings. Companies will go where there is money to be made. It's what they do.
Speedy Taylor -- there's a name you don't hear much anymore...
Well if your company does a time/motion study Taylor is behind it.
Was he still a Nazi? Or did he surrender? Does he still hate Jews? Just curious.
"The comeback of the bedbug is turning into a legal and public-relations headache for the hotel industry...
"A survey of insect-control companies in 2004 by Pest Control Technology magazine found that hotels accounted for the biggest proportion of all reported bedbug infestations."
Vacations this last fall to Grand Haven. Michigan and New Glarus, Wisconsin were both spent in Indian-owned motels.
Reasonable prices with the owner on premise made for very acceptable stays. Had a nice conversation with both the owner & his wife at the Grand Haven facility. Their children are top students at the local school, they are living the American dream. Hurrah for their determination!
He was the guy who quantified it, I'm sure companies (probably firearms manufacturers) were doing it on some level long before Taylor.
LOL. Great concept. I bet the africanhyphenamericans would do something like that with their reparations if us evil racist whites would only support them. Oh wait, I forgot about the "Great Society", where the heck did that money go. Look at the nativehyphenamericans and their reparations--owning all the billion dollar casinos, tax free cigarettes and gasoline, and still getting to whine and receive sympathy for what the evil white men did to them a hundred and fifty years ago. Talk about having your cake and eating it too. I'm part nativehyphenamerican, but don't qualify for casino income so I guess I should whine too.
By that "logic" India is receiving even larger reparations from the the US. Either that or you are being sarcastic.
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