Search results

The market for luxury products and services plays a significant role in the world economy. The luxury hotel market is a crucial segment within the global market for luxury products and services. Luxury hospitality recorded a 5% growth rate along with demand for luxury cruises recording the growth of 7%, the highest among all luxury segments. The remarkable performance of luxury products and services over a period is attributed to the laudable marketing communication strategies of luxury marketers. In this research, we aimed to analyse how a multi-brand hospitality firm differentiates its luxury brand with other luxury brands in the portfolio, using textual messages aimed to communicate the uniqueness of the brands in its official websites. The case study method and content analysis are adapted to achieve the research objective. The study results show that different luxury brands under the brand portfolio of Marriott International can communicate the differences through the textual contents. Most of the differentiation relies on brand-specific features, traditions, services, location of the hotel and metadata on the Internet, followed by branded differentiators. It may be concluded that Marriott has been successful to an extent in using text contents in the website to differentiate its luxury brands.

This paper aims to examine the factors that helped Marriott Hotels in the UK to 14th place in this year's Sunday Times list of the top 20 big companies to work for.

Focuses on employee relations at Marriott in the UK, the Spirit to Serve program and various diversity initiatives at Marriott across the world.

Reveals that Marriott in the UK scores well for having a strong sense of teamwork among employees, a positive and supportive management style, a strong sense of family among the workforce, and employees' sense of pride in the company. The business encourages its leaders to “manage while walking around” its 57 UK hotels. Managers score particularly highly for expressing their appreciation to team members for doing a good job.

Contains examples of good HR practice in the hospitality industry.

Highlights the role of regional diversity councils in providing guidance and oversight to ensure the successful execution of Marriott's diversity‐related initiatives.

Examines three different hotel chains in an attempt to determine the characteristics of excellent hotel companies. Presents information gathered through readings, interviews and individual hotel publications, in order to draw accurate and meaningful conclusions as to the necessary elements in managing and running a successful hotel. The hotels evaluated are Sheraton‐ITT; Marriott; and Hilton. Focuses on service to customers in a clearly service‐oriented industry. Makes recommendations and suggestions as to the successful management and operation of a hotel outfit.

The purpose of this study is to provide an insight on how hospitality companies engage with the sustainable development goals (SDGs) and whether their corporate social responsibilities declaration and actions could achieve the targets of the SDGs by 2030 as they relate to their respective companies.

This study provides a case study analysis of three selected hospitality companies – Marriott International, Booking Holdings and The Soneva Group. The data for the study were obtained from secondary resources such as the companies’ publications and websites. It uses the module of sustainability challenges and the monitoring framework provided in the global sustainable development report 2019.

All the companies examined in this study are investing significant effort and resources to achieve the goals. They are focussing mainly on actions related to challenges that present high to medium levels of socio-political agreement and factual certainty. Though significant progress has been made towards achieving social and economic goals, there is still a large gap in relation to environmental goals. The efforts made solely by the hospitality companies to achieve the targets of Goal 13 are not enough, as hospitality companies cannot achieve these targets on their own. More actions and contributions from governmental and international agencies will be required.

This paper contributes to an understanding of the role that the SDGs play in the hospitality industry and how companies should engage and interact with the goals. Further research might be needed to analyse the financial implications of the SDGs in relation to the companies’ efforts and their respective investment contributions.

Compares two of the largest and most recent examples of international franchising with Europe. Data collected from UK master franchisee personnel are used to illustrate how Friendly Hotels became the European master franchisee for Choice Hotels International and how Scotts Hotels became a major provider of Marriott International hotels in the UK. Focuses particularly on a comparison of the two relationships and on levels of product‐system transfer. Concludes by drawing out the issues relating to the introduction and marketing of international franchise brands.

As part of an ongoing employer brand initiative, Evviva Brands developed My Marriott Hotel, a culinary social media game, for Marriott International that launched on Facebook in June 2011. This article seeks to focus on this initiative.

Global research insights identified social media and gaming as primary in‐home activities and a path for repositioning the Marriott brand with internal and external target audiences. Focus groups, interviews and ethnographic observations led to key game‐play and design components that would ensure the game delivered operations realities as well as entertainment value.

The game was designed as a tool for reaching employment candidates in countries like China and India where the service industry is growing but hospitality is not a highly sought career. By managing a virtual hotel kitchen including staff, supplies and ingredients, players are given insights into the world of hospitality and a culinary career at Marriott.

By relying on target audience insights to build a business case, the project received support from key executive leaders throughout the process and their involvement generated over $500,000 in media exposure during the first few weeks of game launch.

As first to market with a hospitality simulation game, numerous observations can be made about the processes that lead to successful game development and global deployment on Facebook's API.

This study aims to develop dimensions and sub-items that explain hotel brand portfolio strategy (HBPS) and explore performance differences among HBPS groups in an effort to improve our knowledge about HBPS. A key ingredient in success for a hotel company is the successful building and management of a strong brand portfolio.

This study proposes four dimensions of HBPS: brand portfolio scope, intra-portfolio competition, brand portfolio location and brand portfolio element. By employing ten additional sub-items, the study evaluates the HBPS practices of hotel firms and tests performance differences.

The findings present current HBPS practices in the hotel industry and identify four groups pursuing similar HBPS. The results also suggest that operational performance differs according to a firm’s particular focus in HBPS.

This study enriches our knowledge of HBPS by establishing dimensions and relevant measures and by suggesting the effect that HBPS has on performance. Future research might extend this study to examine the potential impacts of a business’s internal and external environments on the relationship between HBPS and its performance.

This study will aid executives in making important HBPS decisions such as whether to add a brand or how to reallocate resources among brands. This study also provides executives with a tool with which to monitor the relative position of their HBPS within the market.

This study is the first to establish dimensions and sub-items for understanding HBPS in the hotel industry. It also demonstrates a new approach to the analysis of competitive positioning and its relationship to performance.

The aim is to describe an employee‐engagement social‐media game that is helping to make Marriott Group a less forbidding place for local people from developing countries to apply to work.

The article explains the background to the development of the game, the form the game takes and the results it is designed to achieve.

It is found that that players of the My Marriott Hotel game run a successful kitchen that services an invisible but implied dining room. This entails balancing such elements as hiring staff, equipment acquisition, ingredient sourcing, customer satisfaction and quality control.

The article explains how the tool is helping Marriott to attract more millennials – those between the ages 18 and 27 – to its workforce, by showcasing the opportunities and growth potential attainable in hospitality careers, especially in cultures where the service industry might be less established or prestigious. It highlights a tool that could help to make multinational companies a less forbidding place for people from developing countries to apply to work in.

The article describes what is believed to be the first branded game on a social medium.

The internet has significantly changed the ways hotels distribute and price their products. The imminent success of online intermediaries caused financial problems for hotel chains since online travel agencies offered better prices than the hotel brand websites. The existing literature on hotel online distribution has focused on pricing strategies and room availability issues for different segments of hotels. This paper, however, aims to compare online room prices of global hotel chains across online distribution channels and their own brand websites.

By using only the internet, 2,800 room rates were collected and analyzed. Descriptive statistics such as means and percentage were used to answer the research questions. Personal interviews with a CEO of an e‐business company and an area revenue director of a global hotel chain were conducted to confirm our findings and to gain additional insights in the related issues.

Descriptive statistics indicated that US properties are doing a much better job than their international partners in regards to “best rate guarantee,” “rate parity,” and room availability across online channels. Rate consistency still remains a problem within US properties.

A limitation of this study is the use of convenience sampling methods, sample size, and currency conversion instruments.

Findings of this study would benefit revenue managers, general managers, hotel owners, and corporate brand managers to make decisions and to formulate new policies concerning their online distribution, revenue, and brand optimization strategies.

Purpose: This paper presents a review of the current state and potential capabilities for application of robots, artificial intelligence and automated services (RAISA) in hotel companies.

Design/methodology/approach: A two-step approach was applied in this study. First, the authors make a theoretical overview of the robots, artificial intelligence and service automation (RAISA) in hotels. Second, the authors make a detailed overview of various case studies from global hotel practice.

Findings: The application of RAISA in hotel companies is examined in connection with the impact that technology has on guest experience during each of the five stages of the guest cycle: pre-arrival, arrival, stay, departure, assessment.

Research implications: Its implications can be searched with respect to future research. It deals with topics such as how different generations (guests and employees) perceive RAISA in the hotel industry and what is the attitude of guests in different categories of hotels (luxury and economy) towards the use of RAISA. It also shows what is the attitude of different types of tourists (holiday, business, health, cultural, etc.) and what kinds of robots (androids or machines) are more appropriate for different types of hotel operations.

Practical implications: The implications are related to the improvement of operations and operational management, marketing and sales, enhancement of customer experience and service innovation, training and management.

Originality/value: This book chapter complements and expands research on the role of RAISA in the hotel industry and makes some projections about the use of technologies in the future.