Marriott International Brand Management Performance Essay

A brand is a powerful tool, especially in the hotel industry where services are intangible. Many hotels of the 21st century have made branding one of their top most priority with the realisation that hotel branding helps to set them apart from their competitors and create a firm customer base. Branding creates brand recognition, brand preference, increase customer satisfaction and most importantly, customer loyalty.

Marriott decided to enhance travelers’ value by segmenting the market and then targeting selected segments, each with a different brand. Then as now, Marriott was the flagship brand. Each new brand would support Marriott’s overall brand identity — a commitment to superior customer service — and train employees to have a passion for service.

For instance, in the hospitality industry, the Hilton brand symbolises high-end properties, elevated quality of service and a unique guest experience. Brand name and brand image are essentially two factors that differentiate companies which operate in the same industry and market. Therefore, the brand name must be unique. Hotel companies like the Hilton have established strong national brands and seek to use them globally with an intention of increasing profits. Once its established as a global brand, the company has successfully created an international image that can lead to increased efficiency through branded marketing efforts and cost savings on a much larger scale. Nowadays with an increase in international travel, the competition among international hotel corporations is becoming a lot more competetive. Those tourists that travel to foreign countries tend to stay in one of the known hotel brands and their standardised quality of service. Hotel chains are motivated to maintain a high rate of global expansion as a key marketing strategy of creating brand loyalty (King,

Marriott is renowned for its elegant and comfortable hotels and resorts. The company caters to a targeted customer base, ranging from the frequent corporate business traveler to the family enjoying their occasional weekend get-away. Marriott has continued its rise in the lodging, contract services, and restaurant industries. The company continuously strives to meet the needs and wants of its customers while strategically maneuvering the rigors of today’s competitive and ever-evolving market of glamorous destinations and convenient services. In order to remain relevant in a highly-competitive environment, Marriott must strike that successful balance of minimizing costs, and gaining and effectively

• What is the cost of capital for Marriott’s as a whole at the prevailing capital structure vs. at the target capital structure.

The corporate branding strategy will create a sort of umbrella under which all the properties of the company will fall, thus sharing the same quality level in the customer’s perception. Moreover a strong corporate brand will ease the company identification and potentially increase the number of new guests through word of mouth, thus enabling the company to gain a bigger market share. Nevertheless the implementation of such a strategy will necessarily involve big costs and a structural change in the organization. Its culture, the way in which advertising is done, the facilities and supplies in each resorts, the way in which management operates will have to be adapted to the new branding strategy. Furthermore undertaking this action may let down some valuable customers who are particularly affectionate to a resort and may be afraid that it will lose its unique and individual features. Plus it might also disappoint some skilled hotel managers which may feel threatened in their autonomy and potentially leave the company. Retraining the whole body of employees to adapt to the new strategy may be expensive and time consuming as well.

Since an increasing number of people focus on brand names instead of product, brands become important elements for customers to choose products (Carroll, 2008). When customers trust the brand, the benefits for the manufactures are generated. In the first place, brands can be used by products as the tool to identify and differentiate themselves from various products. Secondly, brands are helpful for companies to build a competitive advantage (Bick, 2009). Therefore, organisations take more attention to branding.

The cost of capital for contract services is 7.59%. We can estimate the equity cost by using the numbers provided in the case and calculating the beta for each division. (Appendix 3)

Within the luxury tier, many of the players do not actually own the hotels themselves, but instead manage the operation of the business, similar to that of FSH. In the luxury segment, competition for acquiring new management agreements becomes very high as hotel owners make their choices based on the quality and value of a company's management service and most importantly, its brand name. Moreover, guests who choose to stay in luxury hotels are commonly not very price sensitive, and thus it is essential that a hotel distinguish itself amongst its competition by providing value added services as well as maintaining an untarnished, reputable brand name and image.

While, Marriott International Inc. has hotels in nearly 90 countries, and 19 different brands; As well as a reward program with nearly 55 million members all over the world, and is still expanding. In Marriott International’s 2015 annual report, is a message to the shareholders. In its message the company’s future growth is stressed. In fact, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide are acquisitions of Marriott International and are currently being incorporated. Additionally, Hotels in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the U.S. are currently under new development or renovation; although, 77% of Marriott International’s rooms were in North America at the end of 2015 (as can be seen in figure 2 on page 7). Also, the company expressed its concerns on environmental sustainability, and its goals to become more environmentally conscientious. Furthermore, technological improvements thru ought the many hotels, and reward’s program were discussed. Such as virtual reality room service, improved Wi-Fi, mobile check in, and Apple Pay. This message gave shareholders information on the company’s financial standing, and ultimately a guide on how the company plans to boost revenue by appealing to customer wants and needs.

The CCRC projects set an example of the industry and displayed innovation, social responsibly, and leadership. Other departments in which Hyatt emphasizes leadership are human resources and the management style that is practices on a global scare. Hyatt is proud to encourage, coach, and nurture employees via empowerment. “...Future leaders need to listen, have clarity of purpose, and be authentic”, Mark Hoplamazian, the CEO of Hyatt Hotels, tells Wharton Magazine, “One key essential element in being in a position to lead is being a great listener, and applying yourself to it in a very sincere way” (Wharton, 2012).

Marriott is a multi brand company with a Global Portfolio that providing lodging that fit within many market segments. This report will discuss briefly Marriott’s Portfolio of hotels, what they do, briefly examine a number of their key marketing strategies and examine how they are implemented, measured and ask the question does this make them market leaders?

In recent times, branding has played a pivotal role in some brands’ success. This has been made possible through the ability of some marketers to capture the essence and minds of people (consumers), and put the trends and characteristics into the personality of a brand. Customers have always found ways to identify themselves with certain products, and on several occasions, branding campaigns

The organization has explicitly kept this advantageous environment over other organizations by improving its service capacity. Additionally, the organization ensures that it stays ahead of its rivals by engaging in research and development that focuses on luxury products and markets analysis. The Ritz-Carlton hotel uses data from its research to predict the future of the industry; therefore able to dictate what and how the market will trend in the foreseeable future. Another factor that keeps the organization’s advantage over its rivals is that while rivals tend to become a hotel brand in the industry, Ritz-Carlton has rather position itself to be a leader and lifestyle brand that constantly develop new properties and ensure that customers live the culture of the hotel. The final factor that has kept the advantage of the organization intact is the culture of trust that exists between the management and employees. The leadership of the hotel lives and communicates the organization’s value to its employees who in turn satisfy customers in a way that they often anticipate a return visit. These are some of the reasons that the Ritz-Carlton hotel continued advantageous environment over its rivals has persisted in the hotel and resort industry (Reiss,

In the first paragraph, the authors claim that the idea of brand strategy has been widely accepted in hotel industry. The authors cite Dev et al. (2009) and state that the brand strategy becomes vital in hotel marketing. To further support that assertion, the authors continue cite Jiang, Dev & Rao (2002) and state that beginning with Quality International in 1981, most hotel companies have developed many brands concentrating on different markets. Thus, I think the reasoning for this assumption is sound and logical. Nowadays there are numerous brands existed in the hotel industry, such as Accor, Marriott, and Hilton. The existence of numerous brands indicates that hotel industry has accepted the importance of the branding in marketing strategy. In line with Dev et al. (2009) and the authors, Bailey & Ball (2006) state that hotel industry has adopted branding, the branding has become a “powerful force” in marketing. Thus, I agree with authors on this assumption.