SIGHTINGS



A PR Ploy Gone Awry -
Hilton Not Planning
Space Hotel
By Sarah Tippit
http://news.excite.com/news/r/990924/17/leisure-space-hilton< FONT SIZE=+1>
9-25-99
 
 
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.





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