The Hilton Istanbul Bosphorus is a five-star hotel in Istanbul, Turkey. Designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, it opened in 1955 as the Istanbul Hilton and is the longest operating Hilton Hotel outside the United States.<[1]<r[2]
Project
On December 19, 1950, Conrad N. Hilton revealed to the New York Times that he had recently reached an agreement with the Turkish government to build a new Hilton hotel in Istanbul with 300 rooms costing a total of US$5 million. The U.S. governmental agency Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA) was the main financier of an investment project. Hilton would raise the operation's capital and run the hotels while keeping one third of the profits.<r[1]
At the time, Istanbul was growing in tourism, economy, and commerce. The total number of rooms in Istanbul conforming to internationally acceptable comfort standards was 290. The project would more than double the city's accommodation capacity at the international level.<r[1]