Marriott … It’s Where I Belong

In the past year when I’ve done interviews with the press, I’ve received the question repeatedly about how it feels to have a non-family member for the first time as CEO. Arne Sorenson is as much a member of our family as everyone else. I’ve always considered each and every...

Creating a World of Opportunity That Spans Generations

Siu Lam has worked for Marriott at the Boston Marriott Copley Place hotel for 22 years. Her first nine years at the hotel were as a housekeeper making up 15-plus rooms per day. Her last 13 have been spent as a senior housekeeper, supporting, deep cleaning, inspecting and covering any...

Don't Outkick Your Coverage

The Challenge of Growing Globally - Recruiting Great Talent In a recent blog, I indicated that in the next two years we would be opening one hotel per month in China. This, of course, represents a huge challenge to hire and retain some 40,000 new associates. We are working closely...

Around the World in a Day

Many years ago my favorite movie was Around the World in 80 Days. I just experienced around the world of Marriott in 8 hours by video conference. I started my day with our president & CEO, Arne Sorenson, and our senior team with a call to Simon Cooper, who is...

ExecuStay on the Move

You may have heard that Marriott recently announced it was selling its corporate housing brand, ExecuStay, to Oakwood Worldwide. That transaction became effective May 1 and represents yet another step we’ve taken to ensure our company can focus entirely on managing and franchising our lodging brands. The move was good...

Awards of Excellence

My father often said “take good care of the associates and they’ll take good care of the customers.” That’s at the heart of how we do things at Marriott every day. Our associates around the world put people first - whether it's inside the hotels or outside in the communities...

What's an Executive Chairman?

I don’t have an opportunity to hand out many business cards, but my new card says “Executive Chairman.” You don't see that job title popping up on careerbuilder.com. You might be wondering what my new job is all about. I guess you need 40 years of experience as CEO. It...

I'm Blown Away, Thanks to our GM's

I recently attended our full service General Manager's conference in Los Angeles at L.A. LIVE. With hotels in 73 countries, our general session was like a United Nations general session. We were all there to learn about the innovative things being developed by our brands, to share best practices and...

Just Plain Happiness

It feels like I've been celebrating my 80th birthday for weeks. The first celebration was at the JW Marriott Camelback Inn, the second at our GM's conference in Los Angeles and the third (and hopefully last) was at our corporate headquarters. My daughter Debbie helped me cut the cake. I've...

Building Bridges to Opportunity

One of my core business beliefs is that great companies exist for more fundamental purposes than just to make money. At Marriott, we “open doors to a world of opportunity.” That phrase connotes how much we want our associates to grow during their careers. But “opening doors to a world...