Hilton as a pioneer
With the Hilton brand entering the hotel landscape 100 years ago this year, Hilton claims a number of hotel and hospitality firsts.
Hilton was the first hotel brand to put televisions in guest rooms, the first brand to have a multi-hotel reservation system and the first hotel chain to introduce a minibar.
The Pina Colada was invented at a Hilton property in Porto Rico and Hilton also claims invention of the American brownie – although this took place more than 30 years before the Hilton brand was born in a Chicago hotel that Hilton later bought.
Hilton was also the first hotel company to be listed on the New York stock exchange and the first international brand to enter the Japanese hotel market.
More recently, Hilton partnered with Voyager on the design of Voyager’s commercial space station, intended to cater to both astronauts and space tourists.
Looking ahead
In 2025, Hilton Hotels and Resorts will enter its 100th country, which the brand believes makes it the most widely spread hotel group in the world.
And while there have been two high profile Hilton closures in Australia recently – in Adelaide and Brisbane – there are also several properties, across a range of Hilton brands, in the works.
The most immediate of these is the 140-room Hilton Palm Cove Cairns Resort & Spa, expected to open in early 2026 just north of Cairns.
Then there’s perhaps the most significant of Hilton’s announced future openings in Australia, the Waldorf Astoria in Sydney, currently under construction at Circular Quay, and expected to make its debut in around a year and a half.
Hilton has several Garden Inn properties on the near and further horizon too, with properties slated for Kingswood in Sydney, Brisbane and, a little further down the track, Townsville.
For Hilton Hotels in the Asia Pacific region more broadly, hotel development is going full steam ahead. There are more than 80 properties in planning or construction across Asia Pacific, representing more than half of Hilton’s global pipeline.
As for further development in Australia, Vincent Ong, Hilton’s vice president for full service brands in the Asia Pacific, told media on the night of Hilton’s Australasian half century celebration that it’s always a good time to be discussing future development opportunities in Australia.
“There is ample room for more hotels,” he said, confirming “for sure” that there will be new Hilton brands and hotels coming to Australia.
And with Brisbane’s Olympic Games coming up in under eight years, opportunities in Brisbane are also on the radar.
