ional General Managers Conference held here last month was an emotional tribute to J.W. Marriott Jr., who stepped down on as CEO on March 31, following a 60-year career with the company. But, at the same time, the three-day meeting tipped its hat to its long-time leader, it also had its eye focused on the days ahead.
Entitled “Brand New World: Winning the Future,” the conference, which was held at the JW Marriott Los Angeles at LA Live, was the company’s first such gathering in five years. With 1,300 attendees, it was also the largest full-service general managers meeting in the 80-year-old company’s history. Participants included 700 general managers from around the world, 500 representing managed hotels and 200 representing franchised hotels.
To underscore the increasingly global nature of the company, president & COO Arne Sorenson, who succeeded J.W. Marriott Jr., as CEO on March 31, asked the general managers present at the opening session to stand by region, starting with the Middle East and followed by Asia, Europe, the Caribbean and Latin America and, lastly, North America. General managers from more than 70 countries were represented.
Sorenson praised the general managers for “serving at the frontline of the company to our guests everyday.” He singled out managers from the Middle East, given the political turmoil many countries in that region have undergone this past year, and those from Japan, which lived through the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown.
Unveiled at the conference was a new ff&e initiative for Marriott’s flagship Marriott Hotels & Resorts brand called the “Future of Work.” The objective has been to find a way to more closely align guestrooms, public spaces and meeting rooms with the way both business and leisure travelers live and work today.
“With mobile technology, the world has become increasingly interconnected and, as a result, people need the right blend of furnishings, design and connectivity to support their different needs,” noted Marriott Hotels & Resorts’ SVP for global brand management Paul Cahill.
Marriott Hotels & Resorts partnered on the initiative with Steelcase, the furniture manufacturer, and the IDEO consulting firm. Prototypes were on display in pre-function spaces at the JW Marriott for conference attendees to experience. The program, meanwhile, is already being pilot-tested at the Redmond Marriott Town Center Hotel in Redmond, WA.
Cahill continued, “The question we all face is: ‘How are we going to enable guests to work the way they want to, Gen X and Gen Y guests especially?’”
“Guests who had become use to working in their rooms want to continue to be able to work that way. But they also want to be able to work in the lobby as well as meeting rooms,” added Peggy Fang Roe, VP of global operations services.
The tribute to J.W. Marriott Jr., at the conference’s opening session was preceded by a presentation by Howard Schultz, founder & CEO of Starbucks. Schultz recounted Starbucks’ history of entrepreneurship, drawing parallels to Marriott International in the priority both companies place on respecting and promoting their values and traditions.
In his remarks at the tribute, J.W. Marriott Jr., who celebrated his 80th birthday the week before the conference and who becomes executive chairman of Marriott International, called on select general managers in attendance to explain what specific long-held company values has meant to them.
“We have always believed in putting people first, whether our guests or associates or in the communities where we operate,” Marriott began, citing the dictum he learned from his father, J.W. Marriott, the company’s founder and first CEO, that “if you take care of your associates, they will take care of your customers and you will be successful.”
Other long-held company values mentioned by Marriott include these four: continually pursuing excellence, embracing change, acting with integrity and serving the world.
Stepping on stage, he was warmly greeted by managers in the audience, many of whom he has known for years. Famous for visiting up to 200 Marriott hotels a year and going out of his way, while on property, to greet line employees, Marriott said he intended to continue the practice as executive chairman. During the three days of the conference, rank-and-file employees at the JW Marriott returned the attention, whether in the lobby, restaurants or corridors, stopping to have their picture taken with him on their cell phone cameras.
For his part, Sorenson described Marriott as “a friend, partner and mentor.” Sorenson joined the company in 1996 and remains president as well as becoming CEO. He agreed that the company’s success starts with its people and noted that the core values would not change going forward. He summed up the company’s strategy as “promoting deeper connections with the guest; a focus on growth, which makes the company’s brands stronger; emphasizing exceptional performance; and delivering value to the owners of the company’s hotels.”
Planned to coincide with the conference, the developers of a new dual-brand Courtyard Inn by Marriott and Residence Inn by Marriott that is to be constructed directly across from the street from the JW Marriott at LA Live held a launch event that was attended by J.W. Marriott Jr., Sorenson, other senior Marriott executives, the developers and city officials, including Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.
Developers Williams & Dame Development, based in Portland, OR, and American Life, Inc., based in Seattle, expect construction on the $172-million, 23-story project to begin this spring with the 174-room upper-end, select-service Courtyard and 218-suite upscale extended-stay Residence Inn scheduled to open in mid-2014.
Like the upcoming Courtyard and Residence Inn, the 878-room JW Marriott at LA Live is part of a dual-brand project. The JW shares its 54-story tower with a 123-room Ritz Carlton, as well as the 224-unit Ritz-Carlton Residences at LA Live. The dual-brand lodging model is still relatively rare, so to have two such projects across the street from one another is a first.
The JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton have been credited with helping to revitalize the city’s downtown. Villaraigosa said he expects the two additional Marriott brands, representing different price points, and that target travelers on different type stays to further help the revitalization effort. “Downtown has become such a vibrant neighborhood with so many demand generators that, even with 392 additional hotel rooms, we’re underserved in the number of rooms comparable cities of our size have downtown,” he said.
Marriott was also positive on the development. “New hotels mean more jobs and more economic activity. The JW and Ritz-Carlton alone have brought a real vitality to the area. That will only increase,” he said.
