Kemmons Wilson

[2] Wilson initially came up with the idea after a family road trip to Washington, D.C., during which he was disappointed by the quality of the roadside hotels of that era.

Due to prior investments into the property sector, he had already amassed a sizeable fortune which allowed him to pursue his vision of providing his own hotel chain.

[4] He opened the first Holiday Inn motel in Memphis in 1952, and quickly added others to create an entire hotel chain.

Wilson and his financial partner Wallace E. Johnson (1901–1988) were practicing Christians who saw to the placing of a Bible in every one of their hotel rooms and who donated much of their growing fortunes to charitable enterprises.

[6] The chain dominated the motel market, leveraged its innovative Holidex reservation system, put considerable financial pressure on traditional hotels and set the standard for its competitors, like Ramada Inns, Quality Inn, Howard Johnson's, and Best Western.

[9] Wilson was the founder of many different kind of companies such as Holiday Inn Records and Orange Lake Country Club.