Salary
Average Salary: $50,000
Expected Lifetime Earnings: $2,087,400
Hotel owners don't make a salary; they make a profit—or, sometimes, they don't. Say what? Yeah, you heard us. The profit, or the money you get to take home, is the money that's made after all the business expenses are paid off. While the industry is pretty tight-lipped about it, it's estimated that the average profit turned by a hotel chain owner is between $40,000 and $60,000 per year (source). Womp womp.
Any money that your hotel makes has to first go towards paying off the expenses of running the hotel. Paying the building costs, the electric and water bills, and your staff has to come before you. This means that, depending on how much money your hotel brings in, you might not even make any money of your own right away. That factor alone is why there are more office workers than there are hotel owners. One guarantees money, the other doesn't.
However, the potential for you to make a lot of money, even if it's not a guarantee, still makes the prospect of hotel chain ownership pretty attractive. Bill Marriott of the Marriott Hotels has a net worth of $2.2 billion (source), and all the most successful hotel moguls in the business cite their net worth at over one billion dollars (source). How great would it be to kick it in the billionaire's club with them?
You might start off with a measly-to-nonexistent profit, but you have a shot at becoming a billionaire. It's a small shot, but a shot nonetheless.