The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1889-01-11
NEW Works. HOTELS.
The Capital Invested In the Caravanseries
of the American Metropolis.

of the American Metropolis.
The amount of money invested in
hotel property in New York is vari-
Ously estimated. but according to q
fair allowance the land and buildings
are worth $15,O0O,OOO - that is, an
averaged valuation of each piece OF
property at $241. 1880. OF course
this amount would be largely in excess
of the value of more than half of the
regular hotels within the city limits,
but it is also away below the just as
sessment of nearly twenty of the big
hotels now in business. The furniture
in the hotels is estimated as having a
value of $2.000.000. with an average
value of So. 259. Several of the large
houses have expended $250.OOO on
their interior decorations, and three
or four even more than this. All of
these estimates are placed exceedingly
low, yet they show that simply to
build and furnish the good hotels it
required an outlay of $l7 900, 900. This,
after all, is an exceedingly small iu-
vestment when compared with the
amount of money required to accom-
modate the guests.
At the legal rate of interest this in
vestment should return 1850. 900 year.
1t does all this and much more. The
total income of the number of hotels
mentioned is estimated by good au-
thorities as $l4,750.000 year. How
much of this is profit is figured out in
this way: There are accommodations
for nearly $4,000 person in the hotels
rated as respectable. There are at
least two-thirds that number of per-
sons who are counted upon as regular
patrons. 1t costs hotel keeper on
the average about $1.25 a day to feed
and attend to the needs of one guest.
This amount on an average patronage
of 10000 would represent an outlay of
$25, 200 a day. or s9.025.000 a year.
When this is added to the interest on
the original investment of 81, 200, 900.
it brings the total yearly cost, count
ing the employment of servants, which
represents an outlay of 81 ,362. 900 more
up to the respectable total of $l1 ,237,-
600. This deducted from the estimated
total receipts gives $3.513.OOO as the
profits to be divided between sixty-twO
establishments. and would be an ex-
cellent chance for capitalists to go right
to work and pile up more capital with
the rapidity and persistency of the
everlasting SNOWFALL.
Such profits would easily explain the
reasons for the great number of big
new hotels in contemplation or already
under way. But, unfortunately, when
the noses of the guests of big New
York hotel are counted. they don't
always mean weekly or monthly set
Element of the bill The number of
''hotel beats" despite all the precau-
tions taken to detect them and to avoid
giving them credit, is a matter which
is exceedingly grave to the hotel pro-
prietors. There are at least thou
sand persons who practically live upon
the hotel proprietors of this city. Not
the same ones all the while. of course,
but the loss represents the loss of the
board of that number of individuals.
This at once makes an inroad into the
big profit of $1.O95. 900 at an average
of three dollars day. Then come the
breakages in dishes and the invest
ment in new cutlery, which in prop
erly managed house amounts at the
average to 5000 year. This draws
another $4,000 from the profit, and
then come the thousand and one other
items of expenditure-gas, coal, dam
age to furniture, and the like which
run up to the big total of $1.O26. 900 a
year, and again pare the profit down,
leaving it in the neighborhood of ST.
OS2.OO to be divided among the sixty
two hotels, giving each an average
profit. subject to still further drains,
of $17, ass. When one considers that
this profit has to be divided in most
cases among three or four partners,
the little hotels are not coiners Of
money, and the student of finance as
applied to hotel keeping continues to
wonder why it is that big hotels are
still going up in various parts of the
metropolis.-N. Y. Times.
r. "a a.