Though you’ve probably never noticed it, chances are you drive past the Hilton Garden Inn LAX in El Segundo whenever you fly into Los Angeles. Tucked away on a side street between Sepulveda Boulevard and a Green Line rail station, the generic-looking building is almost a parody of a midprice, midmarket, middle-of-nowhere airport hotel.

You’re not likely to find anything out of the ordinary inside the Hilton Garden Inn LAX, either. But if you know where you’re going,or you’re one of the guests handpicked by the hotel’s managers,you’ll eventually find a corridor guarded by double doors. Down the long passage, past a series of other doorways, is the future of the 3,000 hotels and 500,000 guest rooms in the worldwide Hilton Family of lodgings.

A year or two from now, the ideas, concepts, and furnishings that have been tried out in El Segundo will make their way into Hilton-brand hotels around the world.

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