Marriott on the Move

It's been a short three months since terrorists struck our Marriott hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan. It was a terrible loss for the owner of the hotel, Sadruddin Hashwani. Many associates and guests were killed and the building was destroyed by fire. But Mr. Hashwani was determined from that first night to rebuild the hotel, and I'm proud to tell you that yesterday, the hotel began to reopen. What a triumph of the spirit.

I would like to congratulate and commend Mr. Hashwani, his family and all of our wonderful associates for their hard work and dedication rebuilding and reopening this wonderful hotel in record time. It shows their resolve to keep the doors of commerce and communication open by creating an environment where people . . .

We're nearing the end of 2008 and I wanted to take this opportunity to reach out to all of my readers and wish them a happy holiday and all the best for 2009. I'll be spending my Christmas in Washington, D.C. Every Christmas Eve, we have all our children and grandchildren over for Christmas Eve dinner. This year there will be 27 of us.

Then on Christmas Day, we go around with our presents and visit each one of our four children and their families. We start out at about 9 o'clock on Christmas morning and we get home at about 6 o'clock on Christmas evening. It's a wonderful day with family and presents and toys for the kids and plenty of good food, so it's a great opportunity for us.

There's no doubt that the . . .

Today is a very special day for me and for my family. My dad, John Willard Marriott, Sr., is being inducted into the Labor Hall of Fame at the U.S. Department of Labor here in Washington, D.C.

As many of you know, my father, with the great help of my mother, Alice, founded this company, which started off as a nine-seat A&W root beer stand, in 1927. Dad was a hard worker and our employees emulated that same work ethic. He also believed the key to a successful business was to, first and foremost, take care of your employees because he always said, "If you take care of them, they'll take care of your customers and the customers will keep coming back again and again."

My father always made sure to take time to listen to his employees and let them know . . .

It's no secret that I'm known as a stickler for detail. I try very hard to visit almost 300 hotels a year and give them my own version of the "white glove test" to look and see how things are going, to make sure they're as good for our guests as we can make them and that our guests have the best possible experience when they stay with us.

I guess one of the reasons I began paying such attention to detail was due to an experience I had when I was in college, working at one of my father's Hot Shoppes that he had opened out in Salt Lake City, Utah. I was working back in the kitchen on an afternoon after school and was assigned the task of cleaning out the deep fat fryers. I accidentally poured . . .

Hi, I'm Arne Sorenson, Marriott's chief financial officer, guest-blogging for Bill Marriott, who wanted me to share with you our reflections on the economy and Marriott's prospects. With the slowdown, our stock value has eroded meaningfully in the past year. Just because we have plenty of company doesn't make the decline any easier. Before things get better, we're going to have to navigate through a tough 2009. We said last October that we expected revenue per available room or RevPAR, one of the industry's key performance measures, to be down at least three percent in North America next year. Just about a month ago, Bill Marriott reported that our business outlook had further weakened. Industry-wide data has also been showing continuing RevPAR declines.

Despite this, and even though the U.S. has been in a recession since December 2007, we have much to be thankful for. First and foremost, we have a terrific management team, beginning with Bill Marriott, who has been through significant downturns before and has noted that each time we've come back stronger. We also have a great brand lineup which helps deliver strong returns for our hotel owners and franchisees.

Our business strategy of managing and franchising hotels protects us in slowdowns and primes . . .

I enjoy working out with Pilates. It's a good form of exercise and I'm trying to do it at least twice a week. I've also been devoted to my treadmill since I had some heart attacks early on in life. I've been a devotee of using my treadmill at least 5 days a week. I usually do it at night, around 9:30.

A couple of nights ago, I was on the phone with my daughter-in-law Carrie. It was about 9:30 and I was about to get on the treadmill. I turned around and there came my golden retriever Murphy walking into my library, holding the towel from the treadmill in his mouth. He was letting me know that it was . . .