Marriott on the Move

For as many years as I've been traveling, there is nothing like visiting a new country. My passport has stamps and visas for China, India, the UK, France, Spain, Mexico, the United Arab Emirates and now, Colombia since we just opened our first hotel in Bogota. I had never been to Colombia before, but the political and economic climate is much improved for travel and tourism.

Our new Marriott near the Bogota airport is owned by Ricardo Poma, who runs a family business a lot like ours. They hold many . . .

This month we're celebrating the 20th anniversary of the opening of the Warsaw Marriott hotel in Poland. We opened the hotel back in October of 1989, about the time the Iron Curtain was beginning to fall. It was a milestone property for us because it was our 500th hotel worldwide and also the first Western-managed hotel in the city of Warsaw.

Back when it opened, this hotel was . . .

I'm blogging today from the Miami Airport Marriott in Miami, Florida. We built this hotel in 1972. I remember back when we opened it, Garo Yepremian was the place kicker for the Miami Dolphins. We asked him to kick a football over the ribbon to open the hotel, and it was my finger that held the ball. Good thing he was such a great kicker! I still have five fingers left on my hand.

The Marriott has now been completely redone and it looks great. We have three hotels on this campus including a brand new Residence Inn and newly refurbished Courtyard. These . . .

We're really excited that this Monday, September 28, CBS football broadcaster James Brown will be at one of our Courtyard hotels. He's spending the afternoon with us to shoot a video that you'll be able to see very soon.

But while he's there, he's also going to answer some questions from his fans via video segments that will be posted online throughout the fall. You can send in your questions for J.B. either by leaving me a comment on my blog, or through Twitter on our CourtyardHotels site.

We'll select a few questions for J.B. and he'll tape his answers, so be sure to check in with us often to see if your question gets answered! We'll also be . . .

They say you can't be in two places at once, but I learned today you can, thanks to technology!

Today we celebrated two big milestones with one big event. First, the Courtyard Portland City Center in Oregon, which opened just a few months ago, officially received its LEED-Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, and there are only 20 hotels in the United States that have earned that label.

At the same time, the Courtyard Chevy Chase in Md., officially opened today after a $35 million renovation. This hotel also expects to be LEED-certified by the end of the year. It's among 50 Marriott hotels currently registered for LEED certification.

Even though I could only be in Chevy Chase today, I was able to join the Portland event too via our live webcast. The two events were linked . . .

All of you who read my blog know how much I love to share great service stories that I hear from guests. It always makes me happy to hear about great customer experiences because it means we're doing our job well and providing our guests with the best possible service.

But today, I want to change things a bit and tell you about a great service experience that I had. It happened a few weeks ago, when I had just returned to the office from being on the road for awhile. My first day back, I walked in to find a wonderful surprise on my desk - my favorite kind of Godiva chocolates - chocolate orange peels.

When my daughter and her husband were . . .