Inn style.

The international airlines are re-focusing on Latin America because they have found it to be more profitable. Is the same happening with hotels?

No, I think that Latin America was always a link for North America in terms of business, in terms of tourism, and that's why Miami has been the gateway and for us to build the Conrad here, to be a part of the Espirito Santo [building], it just made a lot of sense because we really believe that. There's a lot of traffic coming, not only from South America, but if you look at [it] from Europe, you have every major airline flying into Miami. So there's a tremendous lift. When you have a lift you get business people, you get tourism; you know, you get that kind of business you need.

You are opening an Embassy Suites in 2005 in Mexico. What's the thinking there?

Well, Mexico in general we have been very successful. We have added a few really great resort hotels in Los Cabos in Cancun and we're building three more Hilton hotels, Embassy Suites, Garden Inns. So, that is a precursor so that we may in even further extend our brand. Like the Embassy Suites is already in Caracas, in Venezuela. We are expanding that and all to be looking at Hampton Inns moving to South America as well.

These are all really segmented operations. Around the region we've seen a lot of hotels that aim at business travelers that are not necessarily looking for a five-star, resort experience. Is that what you are seeing as well?

Well, we are not only seeing it, we are actually enjoying it because we have the best brands in the industry now. When you look at the Embassy Suites brand, it is just the dominating brand in the suite market where you get two rooms, free continental breakfast and drinks, and that brand is moving. Hilton has gotten into this. They are the fastest-growing brand and it is all segmented. Hampton Inn, we have over 1,000 hotels and expanding rapidly. That is sort of in the mid-scale without food and beverage, and Garden Inn is with food and beverage. So in our company we have, in every high segment, a brand: From Conrad in luxury, Hilton to Doubletree hotels, and then Embassy Suites, Hampton Inn, and Garden Inn. Homewood Suites is for the extended stay. In addition we have time-shares, where we are doing a lot of business.

The more information you give the market, the more prices race to the bottom. Isn't the Internet a problem for the hotel business?

I think to the contrary. What the Internet has done is, number one, it made it much faster, more transparent and has created more customer benefits, so for us, our technology platform is a superior one because we have all of our hotels on the same system. That is very important. As a customer, when you come to our Web sites, whether it's Hilton or Conrad or so forth, you can connect to any other of our brands. Of all the Internet business, over 80% of that business comes directly to our Web site, so for us that's really what we want to do. The advantage we have is that we can create on our Web site, we are creating, actually, an interactive way for our costumers to know at any time how many points they have earned. You can specifically pick a type of guest room, you can have a special request for pillowcases, you can order a bottle of wine in advance. So it is interactive, where a customer really has a sense of loyalty.

Some of these countries are tremendously volatile. How do you keep rates up in places that can drop off the map, economically, for five years or more?

Well, I mean, it's like anything else. After 9/11 people thought tourism would never pick up, but I believe that tourism and entertainment is the most resilient business in the world. Yeah, we may go down. There are some cruel vicissitudes of life, but it always bounces back, to the point where I'm fascinated. Yesterday, I was reading an article: In Baghdad there's a company selling weekend trips to Syria, under extreme circumstances.

Dieter Huckestein, Hilton Hotels' global president of operations and a board member for the hospitality giant, sees good times ahead. He heads the chain's 400-property owned and managed group, which includes Hilton, Doubletree, Embassy Suites and Conrad International hotels and is responsible for US$5 billion in revenues. Terrorism and economic malaise aside, Hilton is moving ahead on segmenting the hotel market, including in Latin America, where foreign hotel builders in the past often built five-stars only. Huckestein, attending the opening of a new Conrad Hotel in Miami, spoke with LATIN TRADE Editor-in-Chief Greg Brown about growth despite the headlines.