U.S. Census Bureau Daily Feature for December 12: Rooms at the Inn

WASHINGTON, Dec. 12, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Following is the daily “Profile America” feature from the U.S. Census Bureau:

ROOMS AT THE INN

Profile America — Monday, December 12th. Many Americans drive on their vacations, and if they don’t stay with relatives they often stay at one of the nation’s many motels. The term motel came to have meaning only when the automobile started to dominate the landscape and the term “motor hotel” came into general use. The first motel opened on this date in 1925 in San Luis Obispo, California.  It had accommodations for 160 guests in individual chalets, each with bathroom, telephone, and a garage. Today, there are close to 51,000 hotels and motels across the U.S., employing over 1.5 million people. With nearly 5-million rooms available, occupancy averages over 64 percent. You can find more facts about America’s people, places and economy, from the American Community Survey, at <www.census.gov>.

Sources:
Kane’s Famous First Facts, 2429
Hotels, motels and employment/NAICS 721110: http://factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/BP/2014/00A3//naics~72111
Rooms and occupancy/page 2/accessed 10/6/2016: http://www.ahla.com/uploadedFiles/_Common/pdf/Lodging_Industry_Trends_2015.pdf

Profile America is produced by the Center for New Media and Promotion of the U.S. Census Bureau. Statistics and accounts drawn from cited non-Census sources are employed for illustrative or narrative purposes, and are not attested to by the U.S. Census Bureau. These daily features are available as produced segments, ready to air, on the Internet at http://www.census.gov (look for “Audio” in the “Library” pull-down menu).

Photo credit: Thomas Hawk via Visual hunt / CC BY-NC