A spokesman for Holiday Inn, Inc., said today from Memphis, Tenn. that it was not true that the corporation had withdrawn plans to build a 450-room hotel in Jerusalem, possibly under pressure from the Arab League’s boycott committee. The spokesman told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency during a telephone interview that a story to that effect in an Israeli newspaper “was just wrong from top to bottom.” He said: “We are continuing with all the projects we have in Israel”–a minimum of seven hotels, two of which are under construction in Ein Gedi and Kiryat Shemona.
The spokesman recalled that when construction was announced last June, Holiday Inn founder-chairman Kemmons Wilson declared it to be “another important step in promoting world understanding through tourism.” There are two Holiday Inns in Morocco and two others nearly completed there, with another being built in Beirut, Lebanon. According to reports today from Jerusalem, the hotel chain’s plan for Jerusalem involved $7 million for a 500-room hotel. The spokesman said cost estimates were not final and the number of rooms was only 450.
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