10 Interesting things about Marriott International

Here're some interesting/useful info about Marriott International- umbrella company for all JW Marriott hotels- world's largest hotel group. This post is generic to the group-I've a special post focused on JW Marriott Jaipur Resort and Spa, where we spent 2 nights a week ago.

1. Marriott Group is world’s largest hotel chain, with 6500+ hotels offering 1.2 million rooms across 127+ countries

2. Marriott group very recently crossed 100 hotels in India, with the launch of Sheraton Grand in Bengaluru few months ago. At the time of writing this post, their website was listing 111 hotels for India-that is super quick expansion. India is the 3rd country in the world- after USA and China that Marriott has 100+ hotels

3. In India Marriott group is just a few hotels short of Taj Group- but they already have maximum number of rooms on offer for any hotel chain in India (Marriott has 23000 rooms vs Taj Group’s 17000 in India) and Marriott set to overtake Taj Group very shortly in terms of number of hotels as well. 

4. Marriott was the first hotel chain in the world to implement online reservation of hotel rooms 

5. Have you noticed that Marriott acquired starwood group of hotels few years ago? Most of the Starwood brands you may be familiar with- like Aloft is now under Marriott’s umbrella. The loyalty program of Starwood- SPG is now merged

6. JW in JW Marriott stands for John Williard. John Williard Marriott founded Marriott group of hotels about 90 years ago in USA 

7. While almost all hotels stop you at the reception to make copy of your passport, to collect payment/security deposit etc, Marriott lets their guests go directly to the room and relax. Formalities are completed a little later- this brings such a relief for those who are tired by long journey or a hectic day at work.

8. Similar to how Uber doesn’t own cars, Marriott group also operates on a light asset ownership model- most properties are operated on a franchise model- owned and operated by individual business owners under the branding and quality guidelines of Marriott. The Jaipur property where we stayed a week ago is owned by a local business man and leased/operated under JW Marriott's brand name. 

9. Large hotel chains worldwide are trying their best to make their customers book directly on their website, instead of booking on 3rd party sites like Booking.com or expedia. This saves the hotel a big sum otherwise paid as a commission to these sites (could be as high as 15-20% in some cases). The loyalty program run by Marriott and SPG (Starwood Preferred Guest) chains are very popular and highly rewarding. Thus you might get better deal on the official websites than external sites- do check before booking. Low cost airlines have been very successful in this- they have their loyal customer base and those customers book directly on airline website without even checking on OTA. Some airlines operate exclusively on “own website” model, not even listing their flights on GDS. (Global Distribution System) 

10. In India luxury hotel business is affected by significant 28% GST and also over 60 different permissions needed to operate a hotel. Relaxing tax or simplifying the permission process will give good boost to the industry. JW Marriott Jaipur Resort & Spa's MD told me that the tax rates are around 10-15% in most countries plus most countries have a single window process for approvals