Originally Posted by
yyzflyer
Thanks for the trip down memory lane. I had even forgotten that was the original name of Westin.
The original name was actually Western Hotels. It became Western International in 1963, as they started expanding overseas. The two words were then contracted into the made-up word Westin in 1981, presumably as a result of focus group testing by marketing geniuses, lol. Not trying to be nitpicky, but I'm fascinated by this stuff, I wrote most of the Wikipedia page for the chain, haha.
