Magazine content is available exclusively for TIME subscribers.The Banks Are in Hotel Hell
Time was when the hotel industry mixed glamour and high finance in an intoxicating cocktail that attracted the most flamboyant entrepreneurs of the past century -- Conrad Hilton, Richard D'Oyly Carte, Cesar Ritz. But check in today at thousands of U.S. hostelries, including Hiltons, Sheratons and Marriotts, and your innkeeper will belong to a far more somber group: Citicorp, Wells Fargo Bank, Travelers insurance and others.
The jokes are inevitable -- it takes a month to get your reservation approved; no room service after 3 p.m. -- but the banks and insurance companies aren't amused. They are in the hotel business...
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