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The Travelsites team loves hearing the stories about the founding of today's major hospitality companies.

 But the tale about the beginning of Holiday Inn might be our favorite yet. Holiday Inn came to be simply because one man got mad about paying $2 extra to take his kids on a family vacation. It galled him that he'd already rented the room for he and his wife -- why did he have to pay extra if he wanted to have his kids sleep in the same room?

When Wilson Kemmons took his now famous trip, air travel was only for the extremely wealthy. In the 50's the American vacation was always a drive down the newly constructed superhighways of the Eisenhower era. Even though Kemmons was a successful man (we could go on forever about the way he made his fortune), he also took to the roads. After his frustrating experience on vacation, he told his wife he was going to start a family hotel business. After all, he reasoned that most folks with any horse sense were as turned off to the current hotel options as he was.

And so it was that the first Holiday Inn hotel on August 1, 1952, in Memphis, Tennessee. It charged the princely sum of SIX dollars a night! When he was through Kemmons had created an American brand icon... the now familiar green, orange and white triangle of Holiday Inn road motels. The motels were a place where children stayed free and families were treated to a swimming pool, air conditioning and a restaurant at the property. A true visionary, he also pioneered the idea of offering in-room telephones, televisions, free ice and free parking at his properties, things that all folks the world over now come to expect as standard perks.

Wilson targeted the "middle market", folks that weren't courted by anyone else. He was famous for saying -- you can take the the rich people, "and I'll take the rest. The good Lord made more of them!"

This marketing spin worked. By 1959 100 Holiday Inns were in operation, and at the chain's peak in 1975 1,700 Holiday Inns were spread around the world. The chain that started because of one man's belief in value was purchased by the InterContinental Hotel Group. Today, the hotel brand that started with one 120 property is part of a company with head offices in Atlanta and Brussels, that operates or franchises more than 2800 hotels with 450,000 guest rooms in over 90 countries worldwide! From humble beginnings have grown truly great things!

One of the most interesting things about the holiday inn website is that it's not actually found at holidayinn.com. That url leads you to the Holiday Inn Niagra Falls, not the corporate site. To navigate to the real site, you need to go to www.holiday-inn.com. The site has recently been redesigned as part of a larger Intercontinental Hotels Group effort. The IHG folks know their stuff - they make sure that visitors can start the booking process easily. You're able to find the hotel you're interested in as well because they incorporated useful search technology to let you browse by city, near airports, a particular attraction you might visit. True to their roots, you can also search by address and even state routes you might be travelling on. It's a very efficient site and the Travelsites team gives it a thumbs up. Give it a look and experience Kemmon Wilson's version of the American dream.