Adam Kirby joined HOTELS magazine in December 2006 after three years in the newspaper business in Wisconsin. He graduated in 2003 from Marquette University in Milwaukee, where he was editor of the campus paper. While living in Milwaukee, Adam worked stints as a bellman at Radisson Hotel Milwaukee West and in the F&B department at Ambassador Hotel. He is a native of suburban Chicago and is a passionate fan of the Chicago White Sox baseball team.
We’ve come a long way since 1971, the year HOTELS magazine (then known as Service World International) first ranked the top global hotel companies by the previous year’s room count. This year, for the first time, our annual HOTELS Giants survey has moved entirely online.

From sending out an initial e-mail blast to some 400 top hotel company prospects to housing the Giants survey itself on our Web site, the goal is to make the entire process (completing the survey, browsing and editing the data as necessary, running reports and ranking the 300 largest hotel companies) simpler for everyone involved.

There is no question we’ve made it easier on ourselves (and especially on me, your 2008 Giants Director), but we won’t know for certain whether the process is running more smoothly from your side unless you tell us. So please, comment on this blog post (using the “Leave a Comment” icon below), send us an e-mail, or if you prefer the low-tech method of doing things, give us a call to have a chat.

Keep in mind that our goal is to serve you, our readers, and please let us know if we’re missing the mark in any way. My hope is that the new Giants process will be so simple that it will encourage full participation across the globe, ultimately giving us the most accurate data and ranking possible, which will be published in our July issue.

And for those of you who cannot wait until July for data, simply follow this link to last year’s report and ranking, or take a look below for some interesting facts about Giants in years past.

* In 1971, the year of the first Giants report and ranking, Holiday Inns Inc. was the leading hotel chain, with 182,513 rooms in 1,293 hotels.
* In 1995, Hospitality Franchise Systems topped the list at 424,352 rooms in 4,291 hotels.
* In 2007, IHG (InterContinental Hotels Group) achieved the No. 1 ranking, with 556,246 rooms in 3,741 hotels.