In North America, the first inns began to appear in the early seventeenth century. Hotels were located mainly in port cities. The rapid expansion of the hotel industry was due to the absence of class barriers in the new country. Anyone with the necessary means, not just aristocrats, could use the services of a hotel. This was especially important for immigrants who had recently arrived and did not have their own housing.
After the formation of the United States, hotels began to appear in large cities such as New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. Initially, only on the Atlantic coast, but as they moved eastward to the Pacific Ocean, the hotel industry began to expand steadily.
The first American hotel was the 70-room City Hotel, which opened in 1794 on New York’s Broadway. This country has always been characterized by a great need for accommodation enterprises, as immigrants who followed here in a continuous flow needed temporary housing. This demand was met by the rapid development of hotels. In addition, America did not have aristocratic palaces, as in Europe, suitable for balls and other “social events,” so they were held in hotels, for which a special hall was usually equipped there.
The hotel boom of the 19th century brought the U.S. hospitality system to the forefront of the world. Technical innovations such as elevators, plumbing, bathtubs, and toilets found their first application in hotels. The Americans did not become hostages of the European system of building only high-end expensive hotels. The construction of small and medium-sized hotels, designed for all segments of the population, has begun throughout the country. This is still the case today. The technological boom of the 19th century presented the hotel industry with not only new material production. Hotel schools, the first educational institutions for training hotel service professionals: concierge, doorman, porter, garson, etc. appeared.
As in many other areas, the United States was the birthplace of many innovations in the hotel business, including the technical equipment of hotels. Already in 1829, American accommodation companies could boast of modern single and double rooms with a lock in the door and a washbasin with hotel soap. In the early twentieth century, the world-renowned American hotelier Statler developed a modern set of hotel room equipment. By the mid-nineteenth century, the first hotel with central heating was put into operation here, and it was American hotels that were the first to learn what an elevator and a bathroom in a room were. The American 6-storey hotel also became the world’s first skyscraper.
In the United States, the hotel industry developed at an average pace in the early 20th century. A short break in construction (1914-1918) was caused by the First World War, as funds were diverted to other areas, despite the absence of military operations in America itself.
The 1920s saw the rise of the hotel industry, with construction taking place in both large and small cities.
The Great Depression of the 1930s set back the hotel industry in the United States. Most hotels were on the verge of bankruptcy, and many went bankrupt.