What's in the Marriott Name?
;)
Our Executive Vice President of Marriott's global full-service hotel brands, Don Semmler, recently asked why we used the family name on our first hotel almost 60 years ago. My father had acquired a large piece of land on U.S. Route 1 in Northern Virginia. He wanted to build a new commissary to service his growing chain of Hot Shoppes restaurants. But as he studied the location, he determined it had over 125,000 cars passing by every day as they approached the 14th Street Bridge entering Washington. He also knew he was only five minutes from National Airport and three minutes from the Pentagon. It seemed to him that this location was generating far too much traffic for a simple commissary. So he thought about what would be a better use for the property.
It was 1953 and Dwight D. Eisenhower was president and about to develop the Interstate Highway program. Motels were being built everywhere, but most were not very high quality. So Dad decided his location was a perfect motel site. He asked the Ver Standig ad agency, which did our Hot Shoppes promotion, what he should call his new venture. Well, somewhere in the Fort Worth, Texas, area a motor hotel had been built and Mr. Ver Standig said my father should call it a "Motor Hotel". He then said we needed a name to go with the motor hotel in a rhythmic way. Ver Standig suggested we use the brand "Marriott Motor Hotel" for our proposed 365-room facility.
I told Don Semmler the ad agency Said "Marriott Motor Hotel" had tintinnabulation. I said I'd never heard of this phrase since the early days - the agency thought it was an important term and had something to do with rhyme. The actual definition, however, from Merriam-Webster's dictionary is, "the ringing or sounding of bells."
So Don found it in Edgar Allen Poe's poem "The Bells". It goes like this:
"Hear the sledges with the bells -
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody
Foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation to so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells -
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells."
So tintinnabulation inspired the naming of our first hotel with the Marriott name - and so it goes-
I'm Bill Marriott and thanks for helping me keep Marriott on the move.
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Posted By: Gerard Villalobos (7/16/2009)
Comment: Bill, I was not around at the start of your legacy "Marriott Motor Hotel", but I am around now to witness and have the privilege to stay at many of your Marriott Hotel's in the overseas locations. I am an American working and residing overseas. As you know, there are thousands of different hotels overseas, but not very many are up to the very fine par of the Marriott Hotel family. I always make a first effort to book and stay at a Marriott Hotel in my business and leisure travels. I have stayed at some in Europe and many throughout the Middle East and the Far East. Thank you sir for striving and succeeding in such a strong brand of hotels. As I grow older (I am 50 now), I will always cherish the fine memories of all the Marriott's I have stayed at. I am now mentoring my fourteen year old son to be true to the Marriott brand as well. Again, thank you and your entire Marriot staff around the world. Gerard Vill.
Posted By: Syed T. A. Naqvi (7/16/2009)
Comment: Starting out in DC and spending some fifty years enjoying family treats at the Hot Shoppes and many drive-in restaurants enjoying the Hot Fudge Ice Cream cake with cream on top and an extra cherry if I promised to behave. I had many occasions to visit or pass by the first two Marriott Hotels. The hotel in the picture and the Key Bridge Marriott were very familiar. I have put up many friends and relatives visiting the DC area at the two properties.
When travelling I try to stay at the full service Marriot because it meets my needs such as the fitness center, very comfortable and clean accommodations, choice of restaurants etc. When traveling in a new city the bright Marriott sign gives me the "Home away from home" feeling, at the minimum there are no surprises. I know what to expect. There is an iron to touch up my wrinkles and so on.Thank you for great service for many years.
Posted By: Carol (7/16/2009)
Comment: My family use to eat at the Hot Shoppes in Silver Spring. I'll always remember the hot fudge ice cream cakes - they were absolutely the best things in the world. I've searched for 20 yrs trying to find something even close - haven't found any yet! Wish Hot Shoppes were still around.
Posted By: Beth White (7/16/2009)
Comment: I don't really have a comment about this blog but it was the only place I could find to comment about a recent stay at your Macon, GA residence inn. Our house flooded and our insurance put us at that location. Someone from your company really needs to know how amazing the staff there is. They have taken an awful situation for us and made the hotel feel like home. We have two small children. This week our son was sick and had to stay at the hotel with a teen sitter. The manager at the hotel went far and above the call of duty. She picked up lunch for our son and our sitter. THEN would not let us pay her. Every day we hear, "how are you, do you need anything, how was breakfast, are you settled in, etc."
When the house flooded and the contractor said we would be in a hotel for two months I was prepared for misery. Instead your team has provided a refuge.
What an incredible team at Residence Inn Marriott - Macon, GA
