Expansion
In 1949, Sheraton expanded internationally, buying the Ford Hotels chain, with three properties in Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal.[9][10] They quickly resold the Toronto and Ottawa properties to finance their continued Canadian expansion in 1950, paying $4.8 million to purchase Cardy Hotels, a chain of six properties in Ontario and Quebec.[11] In April 1951, the Park Sheraton Hotel in New York City would host the 1951 NBA draft, which was the second ever draft under the NBA name and fifth overall NBA draft in existence by that time.[12]
In 1956, Sheraton paid $30 million to buy the Eppley Hotel Company, which was then the largest privately held hotel business in the United States, with 22 properties across six Midwestern states.[13] Sheraton retained ten of the largest hotels and immediately resold the other twelve. That same year, Sheraton acquired its first motels, purchasing two properties in the suburbs of Syracuse, New York.[5] In 1957, Sheraton, which had previously focused on acquiring existing hotels, opened its first newly built hotel, the Philadelphia Sheraton Hotel.[14] In 1958, Sheraton became the first hotel chain to centralize and computerize its reservations when it introduced Reservatron, the hotel industry's first automatic electronic reservations system.[15]
In 1959, Sheraton acquired its first properties outside North America, purchasing four hotels owned by the Matson Lines on Waikiki Beach in Honolulu, Hawaii - the Moana Hotel, the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, the SurfRider Hotel, and the Princess Kaiulani Hotel.[16] That same year[17] Sheraton opened its first newly built motel, marketed as a "Highway Hotel," the Sheraton Inn, located in Binghamton, New York.[18]
The early 1960s saw the arrival of the first Sheraton hotels outside the US and Canada, with the opening of the Sheraton-Tel Aviv Hotel in Israel in March 1961 and two Caribbean properties in 1962 - the Sheraton-Kingston Hotel in Jamaica[19] and the Sheraton British Colonial in Nassau, Bahamas.
In 1962, Sheraton created a franchise division, primarily to operate Sheraton Motor Inns, large highway motels providing free parking.[20] In 1963 Sheraton opened its first hotel in South America, the Macuto-Sheraton Hotel, outside Caracas, Venezuela.[8] In 1965 the 100th Sheraton property, the Sheraton-Boston Hotel, opened.[8] In 1966 Sheraton opened its first hotel in an Arab country, the Kuwait-Sheraton Hotel.[21] In 1967 Sheraton unveiled Reservatron II, a computer system for personalized reservations.[15] That same year, Sheraton opened its first hotel in Asia, the Sheraton-Philippines Hotel in Manila; its first hotel in Europe, the Sheraton-Du Cap Hotel on the island of Corsica in France; and its first hotels in Australia, two Sheraton Motor Hotels in Melbourne and Sydney.[21]
