1980s

Grand Hyatt New York and Park Hyatt Chicago open, adding two brands to the Hyatt portfolio

Eighty-five people die in the fire at the original MGM Grand on 21 November; the disaster exposes critical weaknesses in hotel fire and smoke protection

Chenot Palace Merano opens

George Yabu and Glenn Pushelberg found Yabu Pushelberg in Toronto

The first Grand Hyatt opens in Hong Kong ⚑ the brand is formalised in 1980

Studio 54 closes on 2 February after thirty-three months; Rubell and Schrager go to prison

Café del Mar opens in San Antonio on 20 June, built to face the sunset

The Landmark opens in Central — the first commercial atrium building in Hong Kong

Café del Mar opens at Sant Antoni on 20 June, facing the sunset

Luigi “Puny” Miroli opens his own restaurant on the Portofino Piazzetta and gives it his mother’s name for him — ⚑ the date is given as 1980 by the house, as some years after 1976 by his obituary, and as 1958 by a restaurant guide

Luigi Miroli opens Puny on the Portofino piazzetta

TCS World Travel begins private-jet expeditions

Park Hyatt launches in Chicago as Hyatt's luxury line

Jason Pomeranc's Thompson Hotels begin in New York

Starhotels is founded in Florence by the Fratini family

Georg Rafael forms Rafael Hotels after leaving Regent

Sweeping reform of fire codes and retrofitting after the MGM Grand fire changes life safety in casino hotels

Peter Borer joins the Peninsula Hong Kong, later running the group's hotels

Gordon Butch Stewart opens the first Sandals resort in Jamaica

The first EUROPA is commissioned, then the most luxurious cruise ship in the world

Bill Kimpton opens the Clarion Bedford in San Francisco — the American boutique hotel

Bob Harmon and Claude Rouas open Auberge du Soleil as a restaurant; cottages follow in 1985

Aldabra is inscribed by UNESCO

Lonely Planet lists Khao San Road with two hotels and three guesthouses; the entry point through which budget travel reached Southeast Asia is now on a map

Wolfgang Puck opens Spago on the Sunset Strip

Cellap Laboratoire founded at Le Mont-sur-Lausanne

Roland C. Pfister founds Cellap Laboratoire at Le Mont-sur-Lausanne; its treatments are at first available only to patients at his own clinic

Cheval acquires its first property in Cheval Place, Knightsbridge

The Sheraton Grand opens on the Corniche — a pyramid, the first international five-star house in the country, and the shape by which the skyline was known for thirty years

Amman Marriott takes its first guest in January — the third fully managed Marriott to open outside the United States

The Cairo Marriott opens inside the Gezira Palace, Marriott’s first hotel in Africa

Palace on Wheels launches through Rajasthan Tourism and Indian Railways, translating princely railway saloons into a moving hotel

James Sherwood returns the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express to service after five years of restoration

Venice Simplon-Orient-Express returns to service after James Sherwood's five-year restoration

British Pullman begins running restored Pullman carriages from London

Palace on Wheels enters service using former royal carriages of the princely states

Stein Eriksen Lodge opens at Deer Valley under the Olympic champion's name

Thomas Althoff opens his first hotel in Cologne

Rogério Fasano opens the family's first hotel in São Paulo

Vallée de Mai is inscribed by UNESCO

Colin Bell and partners found Wilderness Safaris in Botswana

Château de la Messardière opens above Saint-Tropez

Dessange introduces balayage

Fabrice Emaer dies; Le Palace begins changing hands

The White Swan opens on Shamian at Guangzhou, financed by Henry Fok — the moment China reopens to international hospitality on its own terms

Horst Schulze and William B. Johnson found the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company

Baros installs the first desalination plant in the Maldives, putting fresh water and bathtubs in guest rooms

Ahmed Saleem builds the first semi-open bathroom in the gifili manner at Kudahithi — the Maldivian room begins to be designed in the Maldives

Tony Chi founds his New York studio

The Harisch family takes the Lanserhof at Lans and applies the Mayr method

Richard Branson buys La Residencia at Deià on Mallorca

David Lewis opens the King Solomon at Eilat — the beginning of an Israeli resort industry

Ian Schrager and Steve Rubell open Morgans in New York — the boutique hotel begins

Le Toiny opens on the windward coast of St Barths

Beatrice Tollman founds Red Carnation Hotels

Christian Harisch's family takes the Lanserhof at Lans

Captain Vassilis Constantakopoulos begins buying land at Costa Navarino

Valmont is founded in Switzerland and begins licensing its protocol to hotels

The Groucho Club opens at 45 Dean Street on 5 May

Kit and Tim Kemp open their first Firmdale hotel in London

Al Bustan Palace opens at Muscat, built by Sultan Qaboos to host the first GCC summit held in the Sultanate and to mark the fifteenth year of his reign — Oman’s first house of this rank

Emirates begins flying, and aviation and hotels become one system: more air access supports more rooms, and a stronger destination makes the hub worth more

Renfe begins the Al Andalus and Transcantábrico services in Spain

The Royal Scotsman begins running through the Highlands

Conrad Hotels launches as Hilton's international luxury brand

Triple Creek Ranch opens in the Bitterroot valley, Montana

Sue Harmsworth founds ESPA

Kit and Tim Kemp open their first Firmdale hotel in London

Grace Leo takes the Hôtel Montalembert in Paris

The original MGM Grand hotels in Las Vegas and Reno are sold to Bally’s; MGM Grand, Inc. is founded as the corporate predecessor of the present company

Doi Moi: the Vietnamese coast was not empty but closed, and from this point it reopens to a second hospitality industry with different authors from the first

Maguy and Gilbert Le Coze bring Le Bernardin to New York

Mulia Industrindo is established for glass and ceramics; the group moves into property

The Maldives' first overwater villa opens at Vadoo, nineteen years after Raiatea

Cal-a-Vie opens in California, an early destination spa built as a Provençal village

The Interalpen opens above Telfs in the Tyrol

Le Guanahani opens on St Barths; Rosewood takes it in 2021

Aldo Coppola Jr sets the corporate philosophy: owned salons, franchising, the first Italian freelance hair and make-up agency, an academy and a product line

Atle Brynestad founds Seabourn and invents the small luxury ship as a category — under 250 guests, all suites

Peck opens eighteen shops in Japan with Takashimaya

Mariage Frères opens its first tea room, 132 years after founding

Keith Haring paints Mr Chow as Green Prawn in a Bowl of Noodles

Captain C.P. Krishnan Nair opens the first Leela in Mumbai

Hyatt Gold Passport launches, extending the platform beyond individual properties

Kurumba is rebuilt as a full hotel — the step that moves the Maldives from cheap island holidays to the luxury market

The Paradise Garage closes

Olympia & York sign the £3 billion master building agreement for Canary Wharf

Selektion Deutscher Luxushotels is founded

Raffles is gazetted a national monument of Singapore on 4 March, in its centenary year

Seabourn is founded and launches Seabourn Pride

Tugu opens its first hotel in Indonesia, built around Anhar Setjadibrata's collection

Galle Fort is inscribed by UNESCO — a fortified town, not a set of hotel interiors

1 January: Amanpuri opens on a Phuket headland with forty pavilions in a coconut grove — luxury by subtraction, at a moment when the industry was competing by addition, and the banks had refused to fund it

Ed Tuttle designs Amanpuri, setting the visual language of Aman

Adrian Zecha hires Anthony Lark from the Regent Sydney at twenty-seven; he opens Amanpuri as Aman's first general manager and first employee

The Pavilions opens its first Asian house

The second summer of love: Oakenfold, Rampling and Fung take Alfredo's Amnesia sound to London

Cap Juluca opens at Maundays Bay on Anguilla

Pacific Place opens its first phase in Hong Kong; the second follows in 1991

Jean-Emmanuel Sauvée and a handful of merchant-navy officers found Ponant — the only line in this register started by its own crew

Jean-Paul Hévin opens Le Petit Boulé on the avenue de la Motte-Picquet

Orient-Express Hotels buys the Mount Nelson

Amanpuri opens on Pansea Beach, Phuket, in January — forty pavilions, no lobby, and the low-density resort begins

Ponant is founded in Nantes by officers of the French merchant marine

Four Seasons opens its first branded private residences — the model that becomes an industry

Claude and Petra Graves open NIHI Sumba as a surf camp at Nihiwatu

Andrea Kracht becomes the fifth generation at the Baur au Lac

Bill Bensley founds Bensley Design Studios in Bangkok

Small Luxury Hotels of the World is formed in Britain to market independent houses collectively

Pepe Roselló leases the Platja d'en Bossa building from the Matutes family and opens Space

The Grande Arche completes the axis from the Louvre, four kilometres away

Historic Hotels of America is founded by the National Trust for Historic Preservation

Raffles Holdings is established to restore Raffles Singapore and restructure Raffles City

Samih Sawiris begins El Gouna on empty Red Sea desert — a town rather than a resort, and the model later carried to Oman

Orient-Express Hotels buys the Copacabana Palace

Rohan Vos runs the first Rovos Rail train in South Africa

The Little Nell opens at the base of Aspen Mountain