In 1945, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Juan Trippe, President of Pan Am, discussed their concern for Latin America?s need for development dollars at a White House breakfast. The two men thought that one way to attract businessmen and tourists would be to offer luxury hotels in key cities.[3] Trippe, envisioning a rise in mass international air travel, agreed that Pan Am, with the support of institutions like the Export?Import Bank of the United States, could form a subsidiary to foster the implementation of the idea. The hotels would also serve to accommodate Pan Am crews and passengers in destinations where upscale hotels were not yet present.[3] On 3 April 1946, Intercontinental Hotel Corporation was founded. Intercontinental Hotels purchased its first hotel that year, the Grande Hotel in Bel?m, Brazil. The chain soon grew to include numerous hotels throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. The Phoenicia Hotel Beirut, the company\'s first hotel in the Middle East, opened in 1961 Intercontinental Hotels opened its first property in the Middle East in 1961, the Phoenicia Intercontinental Beirut. The chain became one of the first to operate in Eastern Europe when it signed a contract to manage the Esplanade Zagreb Hotel in 1964. The company constructed new luxury hotels at Pan Am destinations around the world. In its hotel designs, Intercontinental aspired to combine Mid-century modern American luxury with decorative elements drawn from local cultures.[3] Between 1961 and 1985, Intercontinental\'s head designer, Neal Prince, designed interiors and branding for 135 hotels.[3][4] The chain was officially rebranded as Inter?Continental Hotels in 1966, with the name commonly spelled with a hyphen as Inter-Continental when typed.[5] The Inter-Continental Kabul opened in 1969, but ceased operation following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. The hotel continues to operate independently using the Inter-Continental name, but unaffiliated with the chain.[6] In 1972, Inter-Continental started a line of moderately priced hotels, called Forum Hotels.[7] The chain opened its first hotel in the United States in 1973, when it signed a contract to manage the Mark Hopkins Hotel in San Francisco. PanAm sold Inter-Continental to Grand Metropolitan on 19 August 1981. The new owners merged their existing chain of Grand Metropolitan Hotels into Inter-Continental and its sibling chain Forum Hotels. GrandMet sold the chain to the Saison Group in 1988, which in turn sold it to Bass in 1998. Two years later, Bass divested itself of its namesake brewing business and renamed itself Six Continents, focusing on hotels. In 2003, Six Continents demerged its bar and pubs business Mitchells & Butlers and the company renamed itself InterContinental Hotels Group. At that time, Inter-Continental Hotels dropped the hyphen in its name and became InterContinental Hotels. The chain is one of numerous brands today within the company.