Canadian Pacific Hotels

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Château Frontenac in Québec
Place Viger in Montreal
Banff Springs Hotel

Canadian Pacific Hotels was a division of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) group that operated numerous luxury hotels in Canada . Most of these hotels were built by the CPR, while others were taken over by the Canadian National Hotels . Today they are operated under the name Fairmont Hotels and Resorts .

CPR built two types of hotels: urban hotels in the immediate vicinity of the respective main train stations as overnight accommodation for first-class passengers, business people and visitors to the city as well as hotels in scenic locations that were marketed as tourist destinations. The hotels looked different, but granite walls and copper-clad roofs were a common feature. Some were built to resemble European castles .

history

The CPR had built smaller hotels at Rogers Pass , Field , North Bend and Revelstoke in 1886 to accommodate travelers. These first four hotels were still very modest and were built to cater for passengers on routes that were then still too steep for the use of dining cars . They were abandoned because they were no longer profitable after the introduction of dining cars.

The first city hotel was the Hotel Vancouver , which opened on May 16, 1888 . Two weeks later, the Banff Springs Hotel, the first rural hotel, followed. The new CPR President William Cornelius Van Horne personally selected the location in the Rocky Mountains . The Banff Springs Hotel was such a success that the CPR persuaded the Canadian government to establish the country's first national park, Banff National Park , in the area . Other hotels in cities and at attractive locations in the mountains followed. One of the most interesting hotels is the Château Montebello , which for many years was the largest building made of logs in the world.

The Grand Trunk Railway and later the Canadian National Railway (CN) followed the example of the CPR and also built luxury hotels along their rail network. In 1988, CPR took over the CN hotel chain, making it Canada's largest hotel company. Expansion in the USA began in the 1990s . The Delta Hotels in 1998 a subsidiary of Canadian Pacific Hotels. With the acquisition of the Fairmont hotel chain in 1999, the company acquired additional hotels, including the famous Plaza in New York . In October 2001 the hotel business was spun off from the main group, for which purpose the independent operating company Fairmont Hotels and Resorts was founded.

The original hotels in Montreal , Vancouver and St. John's were demolished and replaced with new buildings. Some of the hotels that still exist have now become tourist attractions, such as B. the Château Frontenac in the city of Québec . On January 20, 2006, the Fairmont hotel chain was acquired by the corporation Kingdom Hotels International and Colony Capital. A merger with the hotel chains Raffles International and Swissôtel is planned .

List of Canadian Pacific Hotels

Former CN Hotels (acquired in 1988):

Former CP Hotels:

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ SAS buys Hamburg's largest hotel, Hamburger Abendblatt from November 19, 1988, p. 5.