The story of Howard Johnson is one of those American success stories, which in our case started with a small ice cream store in Massachusetts. 75 years ago, Mr. Johnson invented a "secret formula" of a delicious vanilla & chocolate ice cream that soon after became very famous.

Therefore, considering the success of the mysterious ice cream, everybody found it normal that Mr. Johnson started to extend rapidly. Further, Mr. Johnson had the great idea to start selling his concept of ice cream store in franchise system on the condition that these new ice cream stores would maintain the same high quality standards. Thus, Mr. Johnson is known as one of the pioneers of the franchise concept. Mr. Johnson was one of the few people that made his dreams become true, by proving a lot of energy, talent and creativity in order to accomplish his dreams. He is considered a pioneer of several other successful services within the food & beverage industry and an authentic innovator in the hospitality industry just because he set up solid quality standards, true values, and nevertheless a pleasant environment as well as services strongly oriented towards the customer satisfaction.

There are various important moments in Howard Johnson history and it is clear that nowadays Howard Johnson is renowned in the hospitality industry as one of the most famous hotels all over the world where "you feel at home"!

In 1935 Howard Johnson opened the first restaurant in franchise system.

In 1954 we could count 400 Howard Johnson restaurants in 32 states.

In 1959 Howard Johnson and his son decided to enter the hospitality industry and created the Howard Johnson Inns concept aside the highways.

In 1997 Howard Johnson became member of Cendant Corporation, and thus HOJO became stronger and developed even more the hotels chain addressed both to tourists traveling for personal reasons, and to those traveling for business. The truth is that hotels were the future for Howard Johnson International: BIGGER and BETTER! And Mr. Howard Johnson and his son realized this truth.

At present, over 500 of our hotels operate in more than 14 countries: especially in USA, but also in other countries such as Great Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, China, Philippines, Australia, New Zeeland, Israel, Argentina, Columbia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Venezuela, India, Jordan, Malta etc. Over 2 million persons visited Howard Johnson hotels in 2003.

Today Howard Johnson offers carrier opportunities even in Romania. Howard Johnson Grand Plaza is the first hotel of Howard Johnson chain that opened in Romania.

Howard Johnson has recently become part of the Wyndham Worldwide Group.