It Took A Family Man To Put Out The Welcome Mat; Create Your Market: To give travelers an alternative to no-tell motels, Kemmons Wilson created the Holiday Inn chain.(LEADERS & SUCCESS)(BEST OF LEADERS & SUCCESS)

Byline: CURT SCHLEIER

Kemmons Wilson recognized a good opportunity when he saw one.

In 1951, Wilson, his wife and five children hopped into their station wagon in Memphis, Tenn., and left on a family vacation to Washington, D.C. It was, he said later, "the most miserable vacation trip of my life."

At the time, motels were typically of the "no tell" variety, wrote Time magazine in a cover story on Wilson. They were "generally shabby and faintly disreputable places that catered mainly to casual lovers and transient salesmen."

Worse, from Wilson's perspective, they left him feeling cheated.

As Lodging Hospitality magazine noted: "Everywhere that (the Wilsons) went, they'd check in, pay $6 to $8 a room, then discover that each kid cost $2 extra -- which, in the Wilsons' case, jacked up the price considerably."

Angry, Wilson was determined to turn the negative of the family's ruined vacation into a positive.