214 THE MODEL STOCK PLAN
quick-lunch restaurants. The hotel supplies a profitable
share of the trade of these less expensive outside eating
establishments.
The traveling public and a large share of other people
would, in general, rather eat at a good hotel than anywhere
else. But because the hotels ignore the Model Stock Plan
principle of pricing, they drive this trade away.
If the hotels would adopt the Model Stock Plan and its
three full lines, they would have special restaurants for their
de luxe and highest full-line customers. They would serve in
their largest dining rooms at prices that would meet and beat
in service and prices any competition for the best-selling
level of mass trade. They would have cafeterias, lunch
counters, and the like for the cheapest full-line trade.!
One of the reasons that has kept the hotels from realizing
the golden possibilities of these opportunities is that they
are afraid it may detract from the general reputation of the
hotel. But a good many hotels of very high reputation are
beginning to go pretty far along this line. Of course, there
will always be some de luxe hotels that will have only de luxe
restaurants.
Another idea along the same line: one of the curious phe-
nomena that is difficult to understand is that the hotel people
should allow the automobile tourist camps to grow up every-
where. This could never have happened if the hotel people
had been applying the Model Stock Plan principles.2 The
hotels’ high prices have forced a large share of all automobile
tourists into uncomfortable quarters with too limited service.
If the Model Stock Plan is applied to this question, we
should ascertain just how much an automobile tourist can
! Already this trend is being manifested in a limited way by the erection
of new hotels which are particularly designed to permit lower prices for
excellent food but less elaborate service. Some of the outstanding successes
among chain hotels are those catering to the cheapest full-line and the best-
selling full-line trade. Far more can be accomplished in this direction when
the full force of the Model Stock Plan is brought to bear on the problem.
% As this is written it has just come to my attention that at least one of the
hotel trade publications, Hotel M anagement, is carrying on an active cam-
paign for the operation and management of the high-grade automobile
tourist camps by local hotels to cater to this class of trade at the cheapest
full-line price.
