-
- LOS ANGELES
(Reuters) - Forget
about booking a room at the Intergalatic Hilton for
the time being. The
giant hotel chain plans to remain earth bound for a
bit longer.
-
- Hilton Hotels Corp said Friday that it is not planning
to build
a luxury resort in outer space or on the moon as some media groups
have
reported -- but that its Earth-based hotels are taking
reservations.
-
- The buzz that the Beverly Hills, Calif.-based hotel giant
was
planning an orbiting space resort 500 miles above the earth complete
with artificial gravity and space walks for guests -- was a public
relations
ploy run amok, sources close to the company said.
-
- It began this week
after Jeannie Datz, Hilton's director
of communications, told reporters
Hilton was planning a December symposium
to explore the possibility of
building an intergalactic hotel that could
be operational within 15 or
20 years.
-
- Her comments were apparently based on pitches made by
several
companies which approached Hilton claiming they could build a $10
billion orbiting luxury resort using recycled Space Shuttle parts in
anywhere
from seven to 17 years.
-
- Datz said her remarks also
followed on the heels of statements
by Peter George, chairman of Hilton
Group Plc., which owns the Hilton name
outside the United States, that
"One day soon there will be hotels
on the moon."
-
- As it happens, the
exploratory symposium -- which Datz
said would be attended by NASA
executives, engineers, designers, travel
experts and hotel officials --
was being planned without the knowledge
of the company's senior
executives, including board chairman Barron Hilton
and CEO Stephen
Bollenbach.
-
- Upon hearing of the plan, senior vice president in charge
of
investor and public relations Marc Grossman told Reuters he was shocked.
"Hilton is not spending any money on a symposium," Grossman said
Friday.
-
- "We absolutely would not be looking for our company
to be
making any time or financial commitment to pursuing a hotel in outer
space. Period. The status of any such symposium is seriously in
question,"
Grossman added.
-
- Grossman said Hilton's priority
continues to be running
the existing hotel business and completing a
previously announced acquisition
of Promus Hotel Corp. (PRH.N) for
$3.04 billion in cash and stock. The
Promus acquisition would give
Hilton several new earthly hotels to worry
about such as such Promus
brand names as Doubletree and Embassy Suites,
Grossman said.
-
- Datz remained
committed to the idea Friday and accused
reporters of "stirring
the pot" with her superiors. "People
need to have an open
mind," she said.
-
- Besides, she added, "Thirty years ago at a
conference
in Dallas on space tourism, Barron Hilton made a speech and
said if there
are going to be hotels in space he'd like it to be
Hilton. Of course you
want to be first on these things."
-
- Gene Meyers, a former
industrial engineer and head of
the West Covina, Calif.-based Space
Island Group, a consortium of 500 scientists
and engineers, said that
his company had been discussing the project with
Datz for over a
year.
-
- "We wanted to call it the Space Island Hilton. The
artwork
was all done," Meyers said.
-
- Meyers estimated the first
resort would cost $10 billion
but that the cost of building orbiting
resorts would eventually fall as
more were built. "Once you take
the space aura out of it it's really
a kind of a down-to-earth
project," Myers said.
|
