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ABSTRACT
Greenlit in 1956, opened in 1961, Hotel Phoenicia in Beirut marked the arrival of the United States to the Lebanese hotel industry. Most telling, it was the first Middle East holding of the U.S-owned Intercontinental Hotel Corporation – a subsidiary of Pan American Airways – signaling growing U.S. capital interest, and influence, in Beirut and Lebanon. This article explores the history of Hotel Phoenicia through primary sources on its genesis, building, marketing, and sustaining. It argues that the hotel represented an American attempt at empire, through tourism, in the Middle East. This form of empire during the Cold War was distinct from earlier, European colonialism in its reliance on commercial airpower, corporate branding, and governmental investment in the absence of territorial annexation. Pan Am’s global reach and vision for American influence, backed by the U.S. government, sought to make an American enclave and closed tourist loop, from U.S. marketing to U.S. air travel to U.S. hotel and pro-U.S. business practices in Beirut. Nonetheless, this process was contentious and multi-directional. Accordingly, the article emphasises how local businessmen, tourism promoters, and popular culture surrounding the hotel leveraged U.S. interest, setting the Phoenicia as an indigenous, modern hotel in an outward looking country.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Committee on Foreign Affairs, H.J. Res. 350: ‘To promote the foreign policy of the United States by Fostering International Travel and the Exchange of Persons’, 83rd Cong., 2nd sess., February 8-March 31 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1954), 260.
2 ‘Byron E. Calhoun, Hotel President, Dies; Headed International Chain of Airline’, New York Times, September 5, 1957, 29.
3 U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Committee on Foreign Affairs, H.J. Res. 350: ‘To promote the foreign policy of the United States by Fostering International Travel and the Exchange of Persons’, vii–viii.
4 Victoria de Grazia, Irresistible Empire: America’s Advance Through Twentieth Century Europe (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2005), Richard H. Immerman, Empire for Liberty: A History of American Imperialism from Benjamin Franklin to Paul Wolfowitz (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010), Jenifer Van Vleck, Empire of the Air: Aviation and the American Ascendancy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), and Daniel Immerwahr, How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019).
5 Dennis Merrill, Negotiating Paradise: U.S Tourism and Empire in Twentieth Century Latin America (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2009), Christine Skwiot, The Purpose of Paradise: U.S. Tourism and Empire in Cuba and Hawai’i (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), and Lisa Pinley Covert, San Miguel de Allende: Mexicans, Foreigners, and the Making of a World Heritage Site (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2017).
6 James Potter, A Room with a World View: 50 Years of Inter-Continental Hotels and Its People 1946–1996 (London: Weindenfeld & Nicolson Ltd, 1996).
7 Van Vleck, Empire of the Air, 256.
8 F. Robert Hunter, ‘Tourism and Empire: The Thomas Cook & Son Enterprise on the Nile, 1868–1914’, Middle Eastern Studies 40, no. 5 (2004): 33.
9 Ibid., 45.
10 For a review of the state of the field, see Paul A. Kramer, ‘How Not to Write the History of U.S. Empire’, Diplomatic History 42, no. 5 (2018).
11 Immerwahr, How to Hide an Empire, 11.
12 Immerman, Empire for Liberty.
13 Annabel Jane Wharton, Building the Cold War: Hilton International Hotels and Modern Architecture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 3 and Begüm Adalet’s, Hotels and Highways: The Construction of Modernization Theory in Cold War Turkey (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2018), 2.
14 See Waleed Hazbun, Beaches, Ruins, Resorts: The Politics of Tourism in the Arab World (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2008) and Zeina Maasri, ‘Troubled Geography: Imagining Lebanon in 1960s Tourist Promotion’, in Designing Worlds: National Design Histories in the Age of Globalizations, eds. Kjetil Fallan and Grace Lees-Maffaei (Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2016).
15 Skwiot, The Purpose of Paradise, 3.
16 Merrill, Negotiating Paradise, xiii. For a similar argument on the role of local elites in U.S. empire, see Covert, San Miguel de Allende.
17 U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, H.J. Res. 350: ‘To promote the foreign policy of the United States by Fostering International Travel and the Exchange of Persons’, 259.
18 Ibid., 260.
19 Van Vleck, Empire of the Air, 6.
20 Matthias C. Hühne, Pan Am: History, Design & Identity (Berlin: Callisto Publishers, 2016), 11.
21 De Grazia, Irresistible Empire, 3.
22 Ibid.
23 Immerman, Empire for Liberty, 194. For more on U.S. intervention and influence in these cases, see Ervand Abrahamian, The Coup: 1953, the CIA, and the Roots of Modern U.S.-Iranian Relations (New York: The New Press, 2013) and Adalet, Hotels and Highways.
24 Judith Rowbotham, ‘“Sand and Foam”: The Changing Identity of Lebanese Tourism’, Journal of Tourism History 2, no. 1 (2010): 39–53.
25 Maasri, ‘Troubled Geography: Imagining Lebanon in 1960s Tourist Promotion’, 26.
26 Irene L. Gendzier, Notes from the Minefield: United States Intervention in Lebanon and the Middle East, 1945–1958 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), 107–111.
27 Ibid., 12–13.
28 For more on the 1958 War, see Fawaz A. Gerges, ‘The Lebanese Crisis of 1958: The Risks of Inflated Self-Importance’, The Beirut Review 5 (Spring 1993): 1–24, and Dylan Baun, Winning Lebanon: Youth Politics, Populism, and the Production of Sectarian Violence, 1920–1958 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2021).
29 Van Vleck, Empire of the Air, 2.
30 For more on Pan Am’s early history, see Hühne, Pan Am.
31 Potter, A Room with a World View, 8.
32 Van Vleck, Empire of the Air, 82.
33 Ibid., 7.
34 Potter, A Room with a World View, 8. For more on Pan Am’s logistic support to the U.S. during World War II, see Van Vleck, Empire of the Air, 83–7.
35 ‘For Your Information … ’ (1948), Intercontinental Hotel Corporation, Box 11, in Pan American World Airways, Inc. records. Courtesy of the Kislak Center at the University of Miami.
36 ‘Middle East to Chungking China’ (date unknown), Flight and Route Information, Box 1, in Pan American World Airways, Inc. records.
37 For more on the relationship between U.S. empire and the Marshall Plan, see Richard F. Kuisel, ‘Coca-Cola and the Cold War: The French Face of Americanization, 1948–1953’, French Historical Studies 17, no. 1 (1991): 96–116 and Christopher Endy, Cold War Holidays: American Tourism in France (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press), 2004.
38 Potter, A Room with a World View, 38–9.
39 Architectural Plans (June 7, 1954), courtesy of the Department of Technical Installation, Lebanese Ministry of Tourism and ‘Interiors to Come’, Interiors 116, no. 6 (January 1955).
40 ‘Dayton to Calhoun’ (January 28, 1956), Intercontinental Hotels Corporation, box 5, in Pan American World Airways, Inc. records.
41 For more on Christian Lebanon’s investment it its Phoenician past, see Asher Kaufman, Reviving Phoenicia: In Search for Identity in Lebanon (London: I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd, 2004).
42 Samir Kassir, Beirut, trans. M.B. DeBevoise (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press 2010), 115.
43 Ibid., 306–7.
44 Ibid., 115.
45 I thank Phillip Lee for the research here, compiled from English-language newspapers and hotel fan sites.
46 Waleed Hazbun, ‘Aviation, Hijackings, and the Eclipse of the ‘American Century’ in the Middle East’, in Between Catastrophe and Revolution: Essays in Honor of Mike Davis, eds. Daniel Bertrand Monk and Michael Sorkin (New York: OR Books, 2021), 231–3.
47 Van Vleck, Empire of the Air, 256.
48 U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Committee on Foreign Affairs, H.J. Res. 350: ‘To promote the foreign policy of the United States by Fostering International Travel and the Exchange of Persons’, 260.
49 For more on Stone’s works, from his own perspective, see Edward Durrell Stone: The Evolution of an Architect (New York: Horizon Press, 1962).
50 Tania Hadjithomas Mehanna, Le Phoenicia un hôtel dans l’Histoire (Beirut: Tamyras, 2012), 53.
51 New York School of Interior Design, Designing the Luxury Hotel: Neil Prince and the Inter-Continental Hotel Brand, https://nealprince.omeka.net/items/show/105.
52 New York School of Interior Design, Designing the Luxury Hotel, https://nealprince.omeka.net/.
53 Mehanna, Le Phoenicia un hôtel dans l’Histoire, 63 and 74.
54 Stone, The Evolution of an Architect, 167, Mehanna, Le Phoenicia un hôtel dans l’Histoire, 86, and Lebanese General Commission of Tourism, Summering, and Wintering, ‘Consent Request Agreement’ and building plans (April 23, 1965). Courtesy of the Department of Technical Installation, Ministry of Tourism.
55 Mehanna, Le Phoenicia un hôtel dans l'Histoire, 140 and Pan American Airways, New Horizons World Guide: Pan American’s Travel Facts About 138 Countries (New York: Simon and Schuster, Inc., 1970), 600.
56 Pan American Airways, New Horizons World Guide, 600.
57 Ibid., 601–2.
58 Hotel Phoenicia brochure (196[?]), Intercontinental Hotel Corporation, Box 10, Pan American World Airways, Inc. records.
59 Intercontinental Hotels, Europe and Middle East brochure (1967), Intercontinental Hotel Corporate, Box 6, Pan American World Airways, Inc. records.
60 Pan American Airways, New Horizons World Guide, 605 and ‘Forhan to Ewing’ (January 31, 1956), Geographic Locations, Box 2, Pan American World Airways, Inc. records.
61 New Horizons World Guide, 605.
62 Raymond Morineau, Lebanon Today (Paris: Editions Jeune Afrique, 1974), 200–1.
63 Sami Ghazali, interviewed by author, Beirut, Lebanon, June 18, 2022.
64 For more on Salha, see Muhammad Khalil al-Basha, Mu‘ajim A ‘lim al-Druz fi Lubnan, vol. 1 (Beirut: Dar al-Taqadumiyya, 2010), 76–7.
65 Kassir, Beirut, 306–7.
66 ‘Dammam Hotel Project’ (August 4, 1952), Intercontinental Hotels Corporation, Box 5, in Pan American World Airways, Inc. records.
67 Architectural Plans (June 7, 1954), courtesy of the Department of Technical Installation, Ministry of Tourism.
68 ‘Construction Agreement’ (September 18, 1951), Intercontinental Hotels Corporation, Box 10 and ‘Dayton’s Memos’ (March 23, 1956), Intercontinental Hotels Corporation, Box 5, both in Pan American World Airways, Inc. records.
69 Potter, A Room with a World View, 39.
70 Mehanna, Le Phoenicia un hôtel dans l’Histoire, 46.
71 ‘Beirut Hotel Phoenicia’ (October 21, 1958), Intercontinental Hotels Corporation, Box 12 in Pan American World Airways, Inc. records, and The Daily Star, ‘SGHL set to take up residence as first hotel group on Beirut stock exchange’ (199?).
72 Mehanna, Le Phoenicia un hôtel dans l’Histoire, 46.
73 ‘Beirut Hotel Phoenicia’, ‘Status New Hotel projects’ (July 15, 1959) and ‘Export-Import Bank to Gates (July 30, 1959), Interconnection Hotels Corporation, Box 4, in Pan American World Airways, Inc. records.
74 Stone, Edward Durrell Stone, 167.
75 Charles Issawi, ‘Economic Development and Political Liberalism in Lebanon’, in Politics in Lebanon, ed. Leonard Binder (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1966), 75.
76 Carolyn Gates, Merchant Republic of Lebanon: Rise of an Open Economy (London: I.B. Tauris, 1998), 117.
77 Maasri, ‘Troubled Geography’, 130 and Maasri, Cosmopolitan Radicalism: The Visual Politics of Beirut’s Global Sixties (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 49.
78 Issawi, ‘Economic Development and Political Liberalism in Lebanon’, 75.
79 Maasri, Cosmopolitan Radicalism, Janina Santer, '“Open your eyes onto these unexploited treasures” – The Société d'Encouragement au Tourisme and the making of a Lebanese nation in the 1930s', and Nadya Sbaiti, 'Governing Summer in Mount Lebanon: Istiyaf, Tourism, and Mobility in the Interwar Arab East'. The latter two articles are included in this special issue of the Journal of Tourism History.
80 Kassir, Beirut, 347.
81 New Horizons World Guide, 600.
82 Mehanna, Le Phoenicia un hôtel dans l’Histoire, 199.
83 New Horizons World Guide, 602.
84 Mehanna, Le Phoenicia un hôtel dans l’Histoire, 227–31.
85 For pictures of celebrities staying at Phoenicia, see Mehanna, Le Phoenicia un hôtel dans l’Histoire.
86 Dave Mann, Harry Alan Towers: the Transnational Career of a Cinematic Contrarian (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2014), 45.
87 Peter Bezencenet, 24 Hours to Kill (Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., DVD, 1965/2011).
88 For an example of an indigenous modernity, forged by villagers and local committees, in juxtaposition to both Soviet and U.S. pressures, see Suzy Kim’s Everyday Life in the North Korean Revolution (Cornell, NY: Cornell University Press, 2013).
89 Fawwaz Traboulsi, A History of Modern Lebanon (London: Pluto Press, 2007), 120.
90 New Horizons World Guide, 5.
91 Samir Khalaf, Civil and Uncivil Violence in Lebanon: A History of the Internationalization of Communal Conflict (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 151.
92 Sara Fregonese, ‘Between a Refuge and a Battleground: Beirut’s Discrepant Cosmopolitanisms’, Geographical Review 102, no. 3 (2012), 318.
93 Dylan Baun, ‘Claiming an Individual: Party, Family, and the Politics of Memorialization in the Lebanese Civil War’, Middle East Critique 30, 4 (2021): 353–71.
94 For more on the Battle of the Hotels, see Sara Fregonese, War and the City: Urban Geopolitics in Lebanon (London: I.B. Tauris, 2020), 115–125.
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Dylan Baun
Dylan Baun is a historian of the Modern Middle East and an associate professor of history at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, USA. Baun is the author of Winning Lebanon: Youth Politics, Populism, and the Production of Sectarian Violence 1920-1958 (Cambridge University Press, 2021). He is also the author of numerous articles and chapters on youth and young people in 20th-century Lebanon and Palestine, featured in Arab Studies Journal, Middle East Critique, and International Journal of the History of Sport.