Hotels of the World

On the Starlight Roof Garden of the Waldorf-Astoria in Manhattan one night last week a cosmopolitan group of well-groomed gentlemen and their ladies sat down for a long and pleasant dinner. No ordinary meal was this. Eleven years ago to the very night Lucius Boomer played host to the same group in his old Waldorf-Astoria down on 34th Street. Now in his bigger & better Waldorf on Park Avenue Mr. Boomer was again entertaining the officers and executive committee of the International Hotel Alliance.

A dinner for the hotel owners of a dozen nations must have given pause to even the tall, amiable president of the Waldorf and his man Oscar. Neatly they spiked their problem with a startling innovation -- a U. S. menu U. S. cooked. Mr. Boomer led off with Cape Cods baked in the shell, New Orleans gumbo and Maryland terrapin. His bird was Chesapeake mallard. Frozen applejack preceded Virginia ham and autumn salad which were topped off with souffle Lugol and coffee.

Mr. Boomer dusted off bottles of Zeltinger Sonnenblick 1929, Chambertin 1923 and Mumm's Cordon Rouge 1926. The brandy was 1865, the water Poland.

Other guests there were, including Postmaster General Farley, President Merlin Hall Aylesworth of National Broadcasting, Dirigibilist Hugo Eckener and a few of Mr. Boomer's fellow Manhattan hotelkeepers. But the majority were European hotelmen who bore tales of lean years and no profits. There were a few notable exceptions, who reported good business, but the general tenor of the conference was so sad that most meetings were closed to the Press.

Italy. Hotels in Italy were the most prosperous in Europe this year. Benito Mussolini's swift ships attracted travelers to the southern transatlantic route. When the tourists arrived they got more for their money than in France. Italian prices were slashed by government decree early in the year, railroad rates having been cut as much as 75%. Net result was a 25% increase in hotel business over 1933.

Il Duce was well represented at Mr. Boomer's dinner. Retiring president of IHA was Cesare Pinchetti, on his first visit to the U. S. Like his father before him Signor Pinchetti owns Rome's Hotel Bristol, where visiting royalties used to stay. He speaks for the Italian hotel industry in the National Council of the Corporative State (see p. 23). Short, stout and 46, he was more excited last week over the prospect of seeing Niagara Falls than over the Waldorf dinner.

For the 14 Grand Hotels throughout Italy there was Alfredo Campione, their spade-bearded, up-from-busboy managing director. He it was who pulled that de luxe chain out of the hole after the War and he it was who managed to pay a 5% dividend last year when most of the world's hotels were lucky to pay taxes. Now 61, Hotelman Campione is one of the few holders of the order of the Cavaliere del Lavoro (Knight of Labor), awarded by the Crown to self-made Italians.

Britain. British hotels also had a better year than last. With sterling cheap, tourist traffic was up 20,000 for the season, excluding the heavy week-end trade from normally stay-at-home gold-bloc countries like France, Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland. Visiting U. S. tourists remained twice as long as in previous years. Despite rate reductions to accommodate dollar travelers, the Savoy in London took in 35% more from room rent than in 1933.

President-elect of IHA is Sir Francis Towle (pronounced Toll), managing director of Gordon Hotels, Ltd. which owns, among others, London's Mayfair, Metropole and Grosvenor. His brother Arthur Edward, also in Manhattan last week, runs the biggest hotel chain outside the U. S., a string of smaller places the length & breadth of the British Isles. On the side he directs the dining-car, restaurant and hotel division of London, Midland & Scottish R. R.

London's Carlton and Ritz were represented by Director Reginald Charles Vaughan, who used to be Comptroller of the Refreshment Department of the House of Lords and originated, the idea of improvement classes for waitresses.

France. With rare exceptions no hotel in France is making money and the swank Claridge, Plaza-Athenee and George V in Paris have suffered most of all. What little tourist trade there was last summer took refuge in smaller, cheaper places. French prices are still high even in terms of gold, and in terms of the dollar exorbitant. What is true of France is true of Netherlands and Belgium. Switzerland, where hotelkeeping is the third industry, is even gloomier.

Germany. Louis Adlon of Berlin's big Hotel Adlon was unable to attend the IHA conference. But German hotels have fared better than others on the Continent, largely because severe exchange restrictions have kept German tourists at home. It was also possible to buy cheap "registered marks" which could be spent only in Germany. More Frenchmen crossed the Rhine this season than in any year since the Retreat from Moscow.

Elsewhere. The Scandinavian countries, their currencies hitched to Britain's sterling, had a somewhat better year than last. Many a tourist circled the Continent by way of Scandinavia, Russia and Italy. Egypt, where Shepheard's Hotel in Cairo is an international landmark, benefited by Mediterranean cruises. Only country actually short of hotels is Greece. C. Liabratoulos told the sad-faced conference last week that his government would give a 20,000,000 drachma bonus (about $440,000) to the first promoter who would build a chain of modern hotels throughout that ancient land.

U. S. But nowhere in the world is the hotel trade worse than in the U. S. A year ago this $5,000,000,000 industry reported to NRA that 80% of all hotel mortgages were in default, that hotel bonds were selling for 15-c- on the dollar, that one-third of 15,000 or more hotels in the U. S. were unable to pay taxes, that 15% could not even meet payrolls. Repeal jumped restaurant receipts 40% and room receipts have run 12% above 1933, but most of those gains have been canceled by rising costs of labor, food and supplies. The Hotel Code is largely honored in the breach but still the hotels cannot make money.

Manhattan hotelmen single out the Waldorf-Astoria as the chief cause of their local woes. It was the biggest, tallest and last hotel built in the final spasm of the New Era. Its cost was $10,000 per room and there are more than 2,000 rooms. And despite the mallards and the Chambertin 1923 Lucius Boomer probably had a hard time last week forgetting that his big hotel is in the hands of a Federal court because it owes nearly $3,500,000 in back ground rent to New York Central R. R.

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