Marriott on the Move

Today is Earth Day and in honor of this day of environmental awareness, I want to share with you some of our “green” news.  First, I am excited to tell you that earlier this month, our headquarters building in Bethesda, Maryland, was certified as LEED-Gold, which is the U.S. Green Building Council’s gold standard for energy efficient and eco-friendly design.  LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design and has been embraced around the world.

Transforming our headquarters into a sustainable and environmentally-friendly building will save our company $700,000 annually and we expect to receive up to $1.3 million in tax credits over the next 3 years.  As of today, we have 40 hotels across nine of our Marriott brands that are already LEED-certified or LEED-registered, so it was only fitting that our headquarters became a model for “green” design, too.  Over the next 5 years we expect to grow our green portfolio to nearly 300 hotels with LEED-certification.

On Tuesday night (April 13) I was at the Green Street Lodging Conference at our Ritz-Carlton hotel in Washington, D.C., and met with a group of Wall Street analysts and other industry leaders.  We discussed what lies ahead for our company and the entire travel industry as we come out of this recession.

It was a great meeting, but instead of me telling you about it, we've posted a condensed 20 minute recording of the session that you can listen to by clicking here.

One of the greatest strengths of Marriott is the vast experience and undying commitment of our operations managers who serve so well and faithfully in our hotels around the world.  Every year at spring break Donna and I take our children and grandchildren to Camelback Inn in Scottsdale, Arizona.  We haven’t missed a year since we acquired Camelback in 1968.  Our kids joined us, then our grandchildren and this year we welcomed four great grandchildren.

Each year we take some of our “old timers” to dinner.  This year five of our managers and their wives joined us.  Two are retired but three are still going strong.

Having my own blog for more than three years has been a great learning experience.  Blogging has helped me understand the importance of technology and communications for our business. 

Recently, I was interviewed using telepresence. It’s a fairly new communications technology we are testing in some of our hotels around the world with AT&T and Cisco. We’ve named the service GoThere Virtual Meetings. It really is amazing technology. You feel like you’re having a face-to-face meeting with people who are sitting in studios thousands of miles away.  I remember facing a man who was in London. He had an award he wanted to give me.  He reached forward and it looked like he was reaching right across the table to give me the award.  It was an awesome experience.

I’m blogging from the new JW Marriott Los Angeles hotel at L.A. LIVE.  This fantastic property is part of the $2.5 billion L.A. LIVE Sports and Entertainment District, which also features a Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Ritz-Carlton Residences, the STAPLES Center and includes the NOKIA Theatre, home to the Emmy Awards and many other high profile events.

In 1962, we had 5 hotels and I was very anxious to start expanding to the west coast.  So I came to Los Angeles and took a little tour of the market.  I said, “Where’s the best place to locate a hotel?”  And they said, “Well, either the airport or Beverly Hills, but, you know, Los Angeles has no 42nd and Broadway.  There’s no Times Square in Los Angeles, there’s no center of the city.”