There’s a great video of the owner of the Sheraton Suites Fort Lauderdale, Ben Mallah, complaining about what Marriott required him to spend on his Sheraton property. He talks about how Marriott was telling him to bring back food and beverage after the pandemic and he threatened to pull the Sheraton flag over it.
In the end, he sold the Sheraton Suites Fort Lauderdale at Cypress Creek for $28 million. But it’s a clear articulation of how owners believe Marriott will cave to them, and that they don’t need to deliver to customers.
Credit: Marriott
It appears that he still owns the Four Points by Sheraton Suites Tampa Airport Westshore, and also the Holiday Inn Tampa Westshore – Airport Area. I know to avoid those properties!
Marriott CEO Anthony Capuano, known for joking that they’ll put ‘net rooms growth’ on his tombstone for his willingness to accede to anything to attract owners, says that the chain is planning to devolve control of its brand to regional offices. This should provide better flexibility to owners.
The CEO emphasized a key philosophical shift: moving decision-making power away from corporate headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland, and into the hands of regional leaders. This change particularly affects Marriott’s operations in international markets.
“We should have our India team based in Gurgaon — having grown up in that set of markets, having worked in Taj and Oberoi, knowing all the players and how business gets conducted locally — they should be making local market decisions,” Capuano said.
Capuano shared an anecdote about a meeting with Antonio Catalan, a partner in AC Hotels. When Catalan expressed interest in various initiatives, Satya Anand, who runs Marriott’s Europe, Middle East, and Africa business, was empowered by Marriott’s new structure to make immediate decisions without needing headquarters’ involvement.
He says that people think “his priority is property owners” because he “spent over 20 years of his career on the development side of the business” but that is not the reason!
- Hotels seem to do as they wish, regardless of brand standards
- When customers complain, Marriott finds reasons to side with the hotel even when the hotel is wrong
- Or Marriott just sends the customer back to talk to the hotel, which is being non-compliant in the first place
Capuano has said that guests need to be ‘more sensitive to the needs of owners’, willing to pay higher rates while receiving less in return. He’s argued for reducing brand standards to reduce costs for owners and spending less on breakfast and in-room amenities. And it’s not just guests who are expected to sacrifice for owners – Capuano says workers make too much money, too.
Marriott seems far more concerned with placating owners than with taking care of customers. It’s a huge change at the company since acquiring Starwood, and it accelerated under Capuano. They earn money from owners, and want to make it easy for owners to choose Marriott. In turn, Marriott gets more rooms under its flag and shows growth to Wall Street.
That Sheraton owner didn’t hide what he could can get away with. His language is NSFW (and not safe for work from home) describing that there’s nothing Marriott can do to his non-compliance, and he’d just leave the brand.
I’m going to tell you right now: If it has to do with food and beverage, you tell them [Marriott] we ain’t got nobody who wanting no [f’ing] food. I don’t care. What are they going to do to us?
If they [Marriott] ever gave us a f’ing problem and they won’t want to work with us, I’ll take the [f’ing] sign down.
Credit: Marriott
Marriott’s approach is short-term gain and long-term a huge risk to the business. They’re eating away at the brand value they’ve built up, and that’s the only value they have as a company. Since they don’t own the hotels, the value they offer is an ability to deliver customers to hotels.
Hotel owners call Marriott Bonvoy members ‘prospects’. That is what the hotels are paying for. And if guests no longer see the brand as giving them a clear sense of what to expect from their stay, and a clear understanding of how they’ll be rewarded from booking through Marriott over and over, then Marriott will no longer have anything to offer to owners.
Consistency needs to be a top priority – or else they will shed business customers en-mass to Hilton and IHG.
Vacationers may not care about a consistent experience, but frequent traveller’s demand it. I want to know what I am getting based on the nameplate. It’s the entire reason I choose a brand.
It’s good to see that people are tuning into the reality of today’s ‘Marriott world’. But it’s not just about brand anarchy, decimated service or the depletion of loyalty benefits. Going ‘glocal’ is Capuano’s strategy to make one significant operational aspect much easier: corruption. His plan to devolve control of its brand to regional offices makes local corruption so much easier to manage and enables Marriott HQ to promote its ‘no responsibility, no accountability’ ploy further, while keeping owners happier at the same time
I have been campaigning against Marriott corruption for a decade, since the merger in fact. Let’s be honest here. Marriott is fully content to place its name on any building, even illegal ones, if it makes the short term cash flow easier. Marriott is also happy to manage properties that it knows to be illegal and play its part in that illegality
As an example, the St Regis Bangkok was constructed and continues to be operated illegally; local corruption allows for this to continue without challenge. Exposing this in the local media resulted in cruel retaliatory processes against me by both hotel owner and brand owner. FCPA violations took place.The police were bribed to interrogate and scare me and I eventually fled the country in fear of my life. And the St Regis Bangkok does not stand alone. Just remember, illegal construction leads to insurance fraud, the breaking of local and ‘international’ law, and results in dangerous health and safety processes that put guests, employees and locals all at risk
In 2019, after travelling to the USA, I started my first anti-corruption hunger strike at Marriott HQ in Bethesda and was eventually granted time with Arne Sorenson. During our meeting he informed my that compliance routines like KYC and due diligence were largely unnecessary at Marriott, because “we trust our owners to provide a legal and safe building”. Today, Capuano is simply following through on the Sorenson plan, but probably in a much ‘meaner’ way than was ever intended.
It’s a mistake to book a Marriott or any other brand without looking at the reviews. There are always cost-benefit tradeoffs.
It’s also worth reading the one and two star reviews. If the issues are serious and management doesn’t sound committed to fix them, keep looking.
I miss the old Starwood days
Lifetime Titanium member here. Got gold status at Hilton via my Amex card and they treat me way better. Burning down my Marriott points and it is now my choice only if I have no other.
Choosing Marriott is a choice. We don’t have to go business with them. They are just a vendor that we owe nothing to. Just build your trave point wit capital one, chase, Amex.
IMHO, Marriott brand quality and consistency have greatly diminished since COVID, unlike Hilton and particularly Hyatt that have recovered nicely. I think corporate would be well served in the long term to increase focus on the guest experience by maintaining quality and consistency across properties.
I’m just a traveler that scraped into Titanium with Amex nights. I have pretty much given up on valuing the brand and status unless I know from experience or reviews that the property is a good one. Right now, Marriott seems to attract a premium price over similar class competing properties in a market, so things may not change until more people like me begin changing their habits.
Two fairly recent breakdown of benefit examples that (both of which went nowhere with customer service).
Stayed at a property where the lounge offered only a (mediocre) breakfast, reporting that they went to breakfast only since reopening the lounge after COVID. Marriott’s website describes M Club as Complimentary buffet breakfast, Complimentary light snacks through the day; Complimentary hors d’oeuvres in the evening. This property offers one of three. It is selling rooms with M Club access today at a premium (just looked). Particularly if I paid for the benefit, I’d be pretty darn disappointed (even more disappointed than as a worn-down Titanium) to not get what I paid for. I got customer service to say they’d get me a response after they contacted the property. After several follow ups by me, silence. I don’t blame them. What are they going to say? Yes, its true the property doesn’t follow the benefit requirements, and we aren’t going to do anything about it?
Second, held over for a late day flight at a large Westin. Asked for a late checkout. Was told fine, but that the property had begun charging for late checkouts, even for Titanium. Called customer service, who called the hotel. The assistant manager then told me they couldn’t accommodate my request because they needed the room, and that the employee that had offered that I could stay for a fee shouldn’t have. The hotel seemed empty, and a different sympathetic employee that overheard the whole thing offered the hotel explanation was garbage – the hotel was 30s occupancy (visually seemed right). Liar liar pants on fire, but unlike the first example, no admission to a corporate channel that they were blatantly disregarding benefits. No recourse for the guest, though.
Could go on, though want to add I have super unexpected moments at properties, too. When someone craps in the swimming pool, it effects all swimmers. Some day, Marriott probably figures this out.
Indeed. On travels my mom would go right past a choice of decent hotels to go to Wyndhams as much as possible. Why? Consistency. Decent rooms, decent price, and a decent breakfast. There will be people turned off by Mariott if the hotels become too ‘hit and miss’,
It’s owners like him that are screwing over Marriott. That guy is crying over his his hotel’s lost business while he’s shopping for luxury yachts and flying first class.
I’m done with Marriott.
Just stayed at this property for a second time yesterday for the weekend and I would never eat there. It’s an older property and they are doing what they can to keep it up, but I don’t normally eat at hotels anyways. Food and beverage is not a deciding factor for a stay. Price and comfort are.