Hilton Hotels & Resorts is a global brand of hotels and resorts. As of December 2019 there were 584 Hilton hotels & resorts properties with 216.370 rooms in 94 countries in six continents.

The Hilton hotel chain was founded in 1919 by Conrad Nicholson Hilton. After returning home from serving in WW I, he purchased his first hotel, a 40 room Mobley hotel in Cisco, Texas.

The first hotel to bear the Hilton name was the Dallas Hilton, a high-rise that opened in Dallas, Texas, in 1925. The parts of the hotel were designed carefully for guests. Elevators, laundry shoots, air shafts and other non-customer facilities are built along the west side of the building so no guest rooms face the western sun.

In 1927, Hilton expanded to Waco, Texas, where he opened the first hotel with air-conditioning in public areas and cold running water.

In 1943, Hilton purchased the Roosevelt Hotel and the Plaza Hotel in New York City’s Midtown Manhattan neighborhood. Both hotels are high-end luxury and well-known places for travelers.

The company incorporated in 1946 as the Hilton Hotels Corporation and began public trading of shares on the New York Stock Exchange. In 1947, the Roosevelt Hotel became the first hotel in the world to have televisions in its rooms.

Conrad Hilton, was known as the biggest hotel businessman in the world. He died of pneumonia Wednesday night at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Santa Monica, Calif, at the age of 91, He invested $5,000 to buy the Mobley, a hostelry in Cisco, Texas, then an oil boom town.

Hilton hotel chain targets their customers for both business and leisure travelers with locations in major city centers, near major airports, convention centers and popular vacation destinations. This standard is applied to all Hilton and Resorts facilities around the world for customer satisfaction. But remember that not all Hilton hotels are 5-star hotels. The location and the brand will determine if the hotel is rated 5 stars.

The hotel chain operates through three segments: 1. management and franchise, 2. ownership 3. timeshare. The company views these business model as complementary and provides the business with the ability to capitalize on its strong brands and operational scale.