Learning from mistakes
In Fuller’s new book You can’t Lead with your Feet on the Desk, he describes a time when Bill Marriott Jr. visited a hotel where he was a GM at the time. To Fuller’s dismay, his boss ordered a burger that was bad, something he never let him forget.
And it’s not a case of picking on someone for the sake of it; Fuller explains it was a lesson in paying attention to the details and understanding that everyone needs to know the importance of learning from their mistakes — something the company has been doing since day one.
“When we started we built the JW Marriott Hong Kong and we did not have the knowledge we have today,” he says.
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“We had the executive lounge way too small — we did not understand the pulse of the market and we have since had to make major modifications to make it competitive.”
Due to such learning experiences, the company is doing better market research and spending more time on the decisions to enter new products into the market.
“The rules change from country to country so that is just one of the golden rules we have learned and that comes to how you treat people.
We learned that we really have to adapt and understand the markets in depth about 20 years ago, but we learned the hard way by making a mistake or two along the road. We are pretty darn good at it right now and it’s fun to watch our competitors make some of those same mistakes,” he says.
“And I am sure some of the old timers in the market were smiling when we made the mistakes.”
Regional Expansion
Marriott is currently evaluating the Fairfield Inn & Suites brand for the region and is looking at how the first Residence Inn in Bahrain is received.
But while the company has learned to spend more time on analysis, it hasn’t led to a slowdown in terms of intent when it comes to new brands.
Global officer sales and revenue management, Marriott, Stephanie Linnartz, says new brand launches that include Edition, Autograph and AC by Marriott are “going great”.
“We are in a joint venture with AC Hotels, which has 90 hotels primarily in Spain, but also in Portugal and Italy. It’s the early days of the JV, but so far it’s been fantastic.”
And while AC Hotels obviously benefits from the powerful machine of Marriott, Marriott in turn now has far greater access to new markets.
“With Spain, Italy and Portugal we didn’t have a lot of distribution, so it’s [put] the Marriott name into those markets, very quickly increasing our size in Europe,” she says.
“In terms of growth in Europe, we have roughly 40,000 rooms with the goal in the next five years to double it and this acquisition gets us about a quarter of the way there — it helps with our growth goals, it helps build the Marriott brand and it’s great for AC as they get the power of our distribution channels and sales team.”
Marriott vice president — global sales, Middle East and Africa, Vladimir Dabbah calls The Autograph Collection the “anti-brand”.
Linnartz confirms it’s a collection of hotels that have “their own strong independent sense of self”.
They range from everything from 15-room hunting lodges all the way up to the Cosmopolitan, a 3000-room Vegas giant.
Marriott is also in partnership with legendary hotelier Ian Schrager, a combination that has resulted in the Edition brand. While only two properties are online (in Waikiki and Istanbul), it is another brand that fills a niche in the Marriott family.
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