- Rocco Forte
Sir Rocco Forte is a British hotelier born in Bournemouth. He went to Downside School in England as a child and went on to read modern languages at Oxford University. He is the son of Lord Forte from whom he took over as CEO of the Forte Group in 1992. In the mid-Nineties, the Forte Group was faced with a hostile takeover bid from Gerry Robinson's Granada.
- Leona Helmsley
Leona Helmsley (born Lena Rosenthol July 4, 1920, in Ulster County, New York) is a New York City hotel operator and real estate investor. She was convicted of federal income tax evasion and other crimes in 1989 and served 18 months in prison, after receiving an initial sentence of 16 years. United States Attorney Rudolph Giuliani, who later became mayor of New York City and United States presidential candidate, was one of the two chief prosecutors.
- Uma Thurman
Uma Karuna Thurman (born April 29 1970) is an American film actress. She performs predominantly in leading roles in a variety of films, ranging from romantic comedies and dramas to science fiction and action thrillers. She is best known for her films directed by Quentin Tarantino. Her most popular films include "Dangerous Liaisons" (1988), "Pulp Fiction" (1994), "Gattaca" (1997) and the two "Kill Bill" movies (2003–04).
- Conrad Hilton
Conrad Nicholson Hilton, Sr. was an American hotelier and founder of the Hilton Hotel chain.
- César Ritz
César Ritz was a famous Swiss hotelier and founder of several hotels, most famously The Ritz Hotel. His nickname was "king of hoteliers, and hotelier to kings," and it is from his name and that of his hotels that the term "ritzy" derives. Ritz began his career at Le Splendide, a hotel in Paris and was maître d'hôtel at Chez Voisin, a restaurant which closed following the Franco-Prussian war of 1870.
- Vikram Chatwal
Vikram Chatwal (born 1 November 1971) is an American hotelier of Indian Sikh heritage. April 1999, at the age of 28, he created "Vikram Chatwal Hotels" which is an independent hotel group of 9 luxury hotels in 5 cities, with the flagship Dream Hotel. Chatwal has attended the United Nations International School in New York City, has a Bachelors Degree from Wharton Business School and has worked with Morgan Stanley.
- Anouska Hempel
Anouska Hempel (sometimes credited as Anoushka Hempel, now Lady Weinberg) (b. 13 December 1941, New Zealand) is a film and television actress turned hotelier and designer. Hempel was born Anouska Geissler in Wellington, New Zealand. As a teenager in the mid-50s, she attended Sutherland High School. In 1962 she moved to the United Kingdom, and two years later married Constantine Hempel, …
- Song Yun-Ah
Song Yun-ah (Born 7 June 1973) is a Korean model, singer and actress. She spent most of her childhood days in Seoul, her birthplace and graduated with a Humanities Degree at the Hanyang University. Song, as an aspiring actress, made her debut in the 1996 KBS drama "Age Of Personality". She later became a well-known icon by co-starring in the MBC drama "Hotelier". Song is also part-time lecturer at the Korean Central Academy of Fine Arts.
- Howard Hughes
Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. was, in his time, an aviator, engineer, industrialist, film producer and director, a playboy, an eccentric, and one of the wealthiest people in the world. He is famous for setting multiple, world air-speed records, building the Hughes H-1 Racer and H-4 Hercules airplanes, producing the movies "Hell's Angels" and "The Outlaw", owning and expanding TWA, and for his debilitating eccentric behavior in later life.
- Barron Hilton
William Barron Hilton I (born October 23, 1927) is an American heir and co-chairman of the Hilton Hotel chain and paternal grandfather of Paris Hilton and Nicky Hilton.
- Lalit Suri
Lalit Suri (15 April 1947 - 10 October 2006) was the 'uncrowned hotel king' of India and a member of the Rajya Sabha (the Upper House of India's Parliament). Born on April 15, 1947 in Rawalpindi (Pakistan), Lalit Suri was elected to the Rajya Sabha as an Independent from Uttar Pradesh in 2002. He joined the family-run Delhi Automobile Ltd in 1971 but he struck gold when the group diversified into hospitality business in 1982 with Suri as its Joint Managing Director.
- Isadore Sharp
Isadore "Issy" Sharp, O.C. (born October 8, 1931) is a Jewish-Canadian businessman and founder, chairman and CEO of Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts. In 1952, he graduated from the Ryerson Polytechnical Institute with a degree in architecture. He founded the Four Seasons Hotel in 1960 and opened the first hotel on Jarvis Street in downtown Toronto in 1961. He helped start and is Director of the Terry Fox Run. He married Rosalie Wise and they have three sons, Jordan, …
- Mohamed Al-Fayed
Mohamed Abdel Moneim Fayed state he is not entitled. Fayed is the owner of Harrods department store in Knightsbridge, the English Premiership football team Fulham Football Club and other business interests. He re-launched "Punch" in 1996, only to see it fold again in 2002. He is married to Finnish socialite and former model Heini Wathén, and has four living children: Jasmine, Karim, Camilla and Omar.
- Raymond Orteig
Raymond Orteig (1870 - 1939) was the New York City hotel owner who offered the Orteig Prize for the first non-stop transatlantic flight between New York and Paris. Orteig was born in the south of France, in Louvie-Juzon, Bearn, but moved to New York on August 24, 1912. He started working as a bus boy and cafe manager but soon managed to acquire two hotels (the Hotel Lafayette and the Brevoort Hotel in Greenwich Village).
- J. Willard Marriott
John Willard Marriott (September 17, 1900 - August 13, 1985) was an American entrepreneur and businessman. He was the founder of the Marriott Corporation (which became Marriott International in 1993), the parent company of one of the world's largest hospitality, hotel chains and food services company. His company rose from a small root beer stand in Washington D.C. in 1927 to a chain of family restaurants by 1932, to his first motel in 1957.
- Andrew Brownsword
Andrew Brownsword, is an English entrepreneur, developing his fortune through greeting cards and gifts and latterly hotel development, who is the majority owner of Bath Rugby. With his fortune based on the creation of the "Forever Friends" design for greeting cards and gifts, he has regularly featured on the Sunday Times Rich List, with an estimated fortune of £190million.
- Jens Weissflog
Jens Weissflog is the most successful German ski jumper of all time. Only the Finn Matti Nykänen and the Pole Adam Małysz have won more World Cup victories.
- Mohan Singh Oberoi
Rai Bahadur Mohan Singh Oberoi (August 15, 1900-May 3, 2002) was a renowned Indian hotelier widely regarded as the father of 20th century India's hotel business. A centenarian, he was revered in his later years as a far-ranging visionary who provided a modern structural model for South Asia's tourism and hospitality services industry.
- Cecil B. Day
Cecil B. Day was the founder of Days Inn Hotels. Cecil began his academic career at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, where he dropped out to join the United States Marine Corps. When Day completed his Marine training, he began schooling at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he graduated with a business degree. By the time he had graduated, Day was married and had children. It was in Atlanta, Georgia, where he sold his first duplex for $4,000,000.
- Richard D'Oyly Carte
Richard D'Oyly Carte (May 3 1844 - April 3 1901) was an English theatrical impresario during the latter half of the nineteenth century. He is best known for producing the Savoy Operas of Gilbert and Sullivan, founding the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, and building both the Savoy Theatre and the Savoy Hotel.
- R. Donahue Peebles
R. Donahue Peebles (b.March 2, 1960) An African-American hotel pioneer, and real estate developer in Washington D.C. and Miami Beach, founder, president and chief executive officer of The Peebles Corporation (formerly Peebles Atlantic Development Corporation). Donahue Peebles served as a Congressional page in 1978. Appointed by Marion Barry to the Washington D.C. Board of Real Property Assessment & Appeal), he became chairman in 1984 and served until 1988.
- William Sanderson
William Sanderson is an American character actor (born January 10, 1948 in Memphis, Tennessee, USA). He portrayed "Larry" in the United States TV show "Newhart" from 1982 to 1990, famous for the catch phrase, "Hi, I'm Larry. This is my brother Darryl, and this is my other brother Darryl." He has returned to prominence playing E. B. Farnum in the HBO television series "Deadwood". His role is a tragicomic hotelier and first mayor of Deadwood.
- Yoshua Daely
Green Property and Resort Management. Has 30 years experience in Hospitality Industry, previously working with various worldwide chain hotels. Currently as General Manager at Pita Maha Resorts Bali. Involved with The HITA properties. It is a luxury traditional home concept that will feature all exclusive private villas in a design that respects the surrounding environment, offer an enriching lifestyle experience that is based on local art, culture and community spirit.
- Peter Thompson
Peter Thompson (born 27 November 1942) was a speedy, exciting winger who was part of the first great Liverpool team of the 1960s.
- Tim Hadcock-Mackay
Timothy Hadcock-Mackay (13 April 1963-29 July 2006) was an English hotelier, television presenter and philanthropist. Hadcock-Mackay started his hotel career in 1985 as a night manager then sales manager at the "Stafford Hotel", St James, London. He founded a marketing consortium for hotels, "Grand Heritage Hotels" in 1992. In 2004 he was appointed chairman of "Distinguished Hotels" that went into liquidation with debts of more than £1m in April 2006.
- Victor Sassoon
Sir (Ellice) Victor Sassoon, 3rd Baronet GBE (20 December 1881 - 13 August 1961) was a businessman and hotelier from the Sassoon banking family. He succeeded to the Baronetcy on the death of his father Edward Elias Sassoon in 1924. He had no issue, and the Baronetcy became extinct on his death. He lived in Shanghai up until the Japanese occupation. The Cathay Hotel, now the Peace Hotel, was confiscated by the PRC after 1949.
- Noel Corbu
Noel Corbu was a hotelier in the Central French town of Rennes-le-Château. In 1946 Noel Corbu purchased the former estate of the Abbe Berenger Sauniere, the former priest of Rennes-le-Chateau between 1885-1909, and during Easter 1955 he opened a restaurant in the Villa Bethania, later also turned into a Hotel. The hotel itself faced some difficulties due to its fairly isolated location. Between 12th and 14th January 1956, the local newspaper, …
- George Boldt
George Charles Boldt (1851-1916), a self-made millionaire, influenced development of the urban hotel as a civic social center and luxurious destination. He was proprietor of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City and built and owned The Bellevue-Stratford Hotel in Philadelphia (now the Park Hyatt). He was a trustee of Cornell University, to which his daughter donated the Boldt Tower, a gothic residence hall.
- John Drake
John Burroughs Drake (January 17 1826-November 12 1895) was a hotelier who was part owner of the Tremont House hotel in Chicago, Illinois. He managed the Grand Pacific Hotel from 1874-1895. His sons, John B. Drake and Tracy C. Drake were the developers and proprietors of the Blackstone Hotel and Drake Hotel, which are both located along Michigan Avenue in Chicago, Illinois.
- John Drake
John Burroughs Drake (1872-1964) and his brother Tracy Drake were the developers and proprietors of the Blackstone Hotel and Drake Hotel, which are both located along Michigan Avenue in Chicago, IL. The former is located in the Chicago Landmark Historic Michigan Boulevard District and the latter along the Magnificent Mile. Their father John Drake had been a business partner of Timothy Blackstone.
- Charles Forte Baron Forte
Charles Forte, Baron Forte (26 November 1908 - 28 February 2007) was a hotelier. Charles Forte was born in Monforte Casalattico (previously Mortale), Italy in 1908, and emigrated from Italy to Scotland at the age of four and attended Alloa Academy and St. Joseph's College, Dumfries. He worked in a cafe chain owned by his father, then at 26 set up his first "milk bar" in 1935 as "Strand Milk Bar Ltd". Soon he began expanding into catering and hotel businesses.
- Reo Stakis
Sir Reo Stakis (born Argyros Anastasis) (13 March 1913 - 28 August 2001) was an Anglo-Cypriot hotel magnate, longtime head of Stakis Hotels. He was born in Kato Drys, Cyprus 13 March 1913 and left for Great Britain in 1928, aged 14. He started selling his mother's handmade lace door-to-door and gradually headed north, settling in Glasgow. By the 1940s, Stakis was involved in his first restaurant, the Victory in Glasgow, …
- Howard Deering Johnson
Howard Deering Johnson (February 2, 1897 in Boston, Massachusetts - June 20, 1972) was the founder of an American chain of restaurants and motels under one company of the same name, Howard Johnson's.
- Francois Dupre
François Dupré was a French, hotelier, art collector, and owner of the Thoroughbred horse breeding and racing farm, Haras d'Ouilly. Dupré served in the French Army during World War I. Seriously wounded during battle, he was hospitalized for a considerable length of time. He went on to a career in business that saw him become the owner of two luxury hotels in Paris, the prestigious Hotel George V, Paris and the Hotel Plaza Athenée.
- Ernst Zahn
Ernst Zahn was a Swiss author.
- Ellsworth Milton Statler
Ellsworth Milton (E.M.) Statler (October 26, 1863 - April 16 1928) was a U.S. hotel businessman born near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. He built his first permanent Statler Hotel in 1907, in Buffalo, New York (it being the first major hotel to have a private bath or shower and running water in every room). Future hotels constructed by E. M. Statler were located in Cleveland (1912), Detroit (1915), St. Louis (1917), New York (the Hotel Pennsylvania, …
- Ned Hanlan
Edward "Ned" Hanlan was a professional rower, hotelier, and alderman from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Hanlan's father, John, was first a fisher and later a hotelkeeper on the Toronto Islands. The Hanlan family had originally lived at the east end of Toronto Island, but a severe storm in 1865 pushed their little house into the harbour. It washed ashore near the north end of Gibraltar Point, at the island's west end. A few years later, Ned's father built a small hotel there, …
- Georg Hochfilzer
Georg Hochfilzer is currently the General Manager of the Westgate Hotel one of 257 Leading Hotels of the World located in San Diego. Over the past 20 years, Mr. Hochfilzer has managed some of the world’s most famous hotels and establishments, including Germany’s Hotel Schwarzer Bock, the Fairbanks Ranch Country Club and Vienna’s Hotel Bristol.
- Louis Davenport
Llewellyn "Louis" Davenport (b. circa 1869 - d. 1951) was a Spokane, Washington businessman best know for building the The Davenport Hotel (Spokane).
- John McEntee Bowman
John McEntee Bowman (1875-1931) was an Canadian-born businessman and an American hotelier and horseman who was the founding president of Bowman-Biltmore Hotels Corp.. Born in Toronto, Ontario, John Bowman began his American working life in a men's clothing store in Yonkers but learned the hotel business at New York City's Holland House Hotel.