Nobody Asked Me, But…No. 197: Hotel History: Ralph Hitz (1891-1940)

Stanley Turkel | June 13, 2018

by Stanley Turkel, CMHS Hotel History: Ralph Hitz (1891- 1940) The hotel business has seen many fine promoters and salesmen but perhaps none as creative as Ralph Hitz. His two favorite expressions "Contact the hell out of 'em" and "Give 'em walue and you get wolume", spoken in his thick Viennese accent, were a key to his philosophy of business. And it worked. Hitz does not rank with the other great hotelmen in the sense that he built an empire or left an estate. He did neither. His period in the limelight lasted only 10 years, a period when the hotel business was at its low ebb in American history. Hitz was a sales and promotion phenome...