Ralph Hitz facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Ralph Hitz
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Ralph Hitz pictured in Eminent Americans 1936
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| Born | 1 March 1891 |
| Died | 12 January 1940 (aged 48) |
Ralph Hitz (born March 1, 1891 – died January 12, 1940) was a very important person in the hotel business. He came up with new ideas for how hotels should be run and how to treat guests. Many of his ideas for marketing and customer service are still used today in fancy hotels. In the 1930s, he was in charge of the National Hotel Management Company. This was the biggest hotel group in the United States at that time.
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Ralph Hitz's Early Life
Ralph Hitz was born in Vienna, Austria, on March 1, 1891. His family was Jewish. When he was 14, he ran away from school and started working as an elevator boy at the Hotel Sacher in Vienna. His family found him and sent him back to school. His father wanted him to become an architect.
However, when his family visited the United States in 1906, Ralph ran away again. This happened just three days after they arrived in New York. He traveled to New Mexico and got a job as a busboy at a small hotel in Lumberton. For the next nine years, he worked in different restaurants and hotels across the country. Then, he started working in hotel management.
In 1926, Ralph Hitz became a hotel manager for the first time. This was at the Fenway Hall Hotel in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1927, he became the manager of Cincinnati's Hotel Gibson. In just two years, he made that hotel earn three times more money than before.
Leading the Hotel New Yorker
The New Yorker Hotel was a huge new hotel with 2,500 rooms. Ralph Hitz was hired to manage it before it opened. The hotel opened on January 2, 1930. This was only a few weeks after the stock market crashed, which started the Great Depression. Even during this tough time, Hitz was able to make the hotel successful.
Because he was so good at making money, the bank that owned the hotel, Manufacturers Trust Company, hired him. They wanted him to manage all of their hotels. In 1932, the National Hotel Management Company (NHM) was created, and Hitz became its president.
By the time Ralph Hitz passed away at age 48, the NHM managed many famous hotels. These included the New Yorker, the Lexington, and the Belmont Plaza hotels in New York. They also managed the Congress Hotel in Chicago, the Netherland Plaza in Cincinnati, and the Adolphus Hotel in Dallas. Other hotels were the Hotel Van Cleve in Dayton, the Book-Cadillac in Detroit, and the Nicollet Hotel in Minneapolis. The NHM also ran the restaurants at New York Municipal Airport and the Eastern Slope Inn in North Conway, New Hampshire.
Ralph Hitz's New Ideas
In 1936, Ralph Hitz wrote a book called The Standard Practice Manuals for Hotel Operation. This book explained everything he thought was needed to run a hotel well.
Hitz was the first hotel manager to create a special system for his guests. Before computers, he kept many file cabinets filled with information about what thousands of guests liked. For example, he would use this information to order newspapers from a guest's hometown. These newspapers would then be delivered to their rooms.
He also kept track of information about annual meetings for 3,000 different groups. He sent weekly updates to each of his hotels. He also worked hard to get these groups to hold their meetings in cities where NHM hotels were located.
Hitz knew it was important to keep his employees happy. He paid them well and sent them gifts on special days. He also made sure that employees who had worked for him for five years or more would not lose their jobs. But Hitz's best skill was how he treated his guests. His famous saying was: "Give the customer value and you will get volume sales in return." This meant if you give people good service, they will come back often.
Another one of Hitz's ideas was a special radio system inside the hotels. This was like the in-house TV channels in hotels today. Guests could turn on the radio to hear about the evening's entertainment or what was on the menu for dinner. In the hotel dining rooms, Hitz hired a special chef. This chef would make fancy desserts like café diablo and Crêpes Suzette. He sold these treats for only 50 cents, which was a good price.
Ralph Hitz's Death
Ralph Hitz became sick at the end of 1939 because of a liver problem. He passed away from a heart attack on January 12, 1940. He was 48 years old. This happened at the Post Graduate Hospital in New York City. Hundreds of people attended his funeral. He was cremated and buried at Fresh Pond Crematory in Long Island, New York.
The National Hotel Management Company, which he helped create, was closed down within a month of his death.
Ralph Hitz's Family
Ralph Hitz married Myrtle Dahl in Michigan in 1915. They had a son named Ralph Hitz Jr., who was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1925. Ralph Hitz Jr. also became a respected hotel manager. Ralph Hitz was also a stepfather to Louise Hitz. She was an entertainer and figure skater who married singer Buddy Clark in 1935.
Ralph Hitz's Legacy
A special scholarship was created to honor Ralph Hitz. It is called the Ralph Hitz Memorial Scholarship. It helps college students who are studying how to manage hotels. This scholarship was started on April 1, 1941, by Hotel Ezra Cornell at the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration. It is still given out today.
