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If you go to money.cnn.com look for the Ali Velshi inteview with JW Marriott. The 75 year old CEO leader of the Marriott empire has alot of business sense left in him. It gives you a real sense of appreciation for this senior business leader.
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Flying at MACH4 + -
Thanks for the post.
Saw his son a few years ago at the Ritz Carlton playing tennis. -
Of course, he neglects the topic of renegade hotels, poorly trained staff, franchisees who do it "their way", issues and limitations with MARSHA, and a host of much more substantive topics. Just another fluff piece, IMO. Better get back to the tennis court in MonacoJ.W. MARRIOTT JR., CHAIRMAN AND CEO MARRIOTT INTERNATIONAL: My dad started the business with a drive-in restaurant chain in the '30s. We've grown today; it will be 80 years this year. Started in Washington, D.C., really with a root beer stand and added hamburgers and hot dogs and turned it into a drive-in restaurant and we had about 40 drive-in restaurants by the end of the '40s and then finally in '57 opened our first hotel in Washington.
ALI VELSHI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): If you look back to 1957 to now, what's changed in this industry? What's changed in the business? What's the biggest thing that's different now from when your father started this?
MARRIOTT: We're doing a lot more than just renting a room and giving somebody a breakfast.
We have thirteen hundred people just in the systems department in that company, at headquarters that is not on the property, that's at headquarters. Just designing systems to be able to better take care of our customers.
VELSHI: It sort of correspondents with the way the technology in every field has allowed the consumer to customize their experience, to tell their retailer, the business that provides them with goods or services what they want be a how they want it. Has that had a big impact on how you do business?
MARRIOTT: Sure. We're doing a lot of business online. We did $4 billion on Marriott.com last year. We developed in our rooms what we call a connectivity panel, part of our television sets so you can plug in your ipod and listen to music on the speakers from the TV. You can plug in your DVD through your computer and watch movies. You can plug your computer in, you can split the screen, watch sports, read your e- mails. All kinds of things you can do with this connectivity panel.
VELSHI: How do you come around to that? You have witnessed all of that change, I mean are you a consumer of these things? Do you have an ipod? I know you blog. How connected -- how much of this is because it's good business and how much of it do you really think is the way things go?
MARRIOTT: It is the way things go and it is good business. The younger generation today is so wired with computers and with technology that if you ignore this end of the business, you're ignoring it at your peril.
VELSHI: Can you tell us about branding? It's an embarrassing question to ask you about this more than most business leaders because I imagine you worry a great deal about branding. Your name is on so many hotels. But your empire has a lot of brands that don't carry your name. Tell me how the customer is supposed to respond to these different hotels within the Marriott family?
MARRIOTT: We have two brands that don't carry our name. One is Renaissance and the other one is Ritz-Carlton. And Renaissance is a competitor really with Marriott and Ritz-Carlton is a step above both Marriott and Renaissance. All the courtyards, Springhill suites, all those brands are by Marriott so we do have our name on those brands and it's very important for us to differentiate by purpose of trip.
We might have a person attending an investment conference at Ritz- Carlton take his family to Disneyland in Florida and he'll get his family a car, stay at a Fairfield Inn or stay at a Courtyard. What is the purpose of your trip?
VELSHI: I want to ask you a little bit about the economy.
MARRIOTT: OK.
VELSHI: We have oil prices that are relatively high. We have some people finding their interest rates on their homes readjusted and having trouble making those payments. We've heard of foreclosures, we've got gas prices that are high. Does this translate into your business? Do you see the impact of people and their financial issues in your business?
MARRIOTT: We very closely track the economy. It's very important to us to have a very strong economy. People around the world are buying our products. With the dollar so cheap, buying American products around the world is the real deal. One much of the problems we have is we're not getting enough inbound tourists coming to the United States that we should. Our inbound tourists are growing 3 to 4 percent a year. They should be growing at 10 or 12 percent. This is a very good place to visit and very inexpensive to visit.
Part of the problem is the trouble people have overseas getting visas, getting through immigration. We're really do believe in strong borders because we lost a hotel here in New York in 9/11. Our hotel at the World Trade Center was destroyed. We lost a couple of our associates and we've had terrorist incidences around the world. We understand the great importance of security. At the same time the Department of State and Homeland Security have to get their act together in terms of getting an opportunity for people to have easier access to visas and a greater opportunity to visit this country.
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