Marriott planning a major overhaul for Sheraton
Marriott has confirmed that the Sheraton hotel brand will be reinvented thoroughly as opposed to reports of the brand being made redundant altogether.
Marriott International president and CEO Arne Sorenson told Hotelier Middle East in Dubai that various processes are currently in motion to ensure its revival.
“Sheraton is a hugely important brand for us, which has been in the Middle East and North Africa region for nearly 50 years. It’s extraordinarily well known around the world,” Sorenson told Hotelier.
He also admitted that the brand, perceived as ailing in the United States and North America, has “greater strength outside the United States than it does within the country”.
“That is fundamentally because of the quality of the portfolio of hotels. And so, we are working with our owners and franchises around the world to make sure we get the right standard in, we communicate those standards and a time frame they need to follow them by,” Sorenson told Hotelier indicating that the onus is on the owners and partners to make the right investment.
Sorenson said a few hotels might even face the cut. “There will be a few hotels that do not meet those standards and they will be taken off the platform, but we will like to see how best to reinvented so that they can be on our strategy.”
Sheraton enjoys a strong presence in the Middle East and Africa and Sorenson confirmed that the owners of the successful properties will be made part of the dialogue. “We are moving on that quickly and there will be an outcome soon.”
Sorenson is unwilling to divulge details of the integrated loyalty programme, which is currently underworks and is supposedly set for a 2018 launch. The move, however, is imminent which will witness the coming together of SPG, Marriot Rewards and the Ritz-Carlton Rewards loyalty programmes in the near future.
He said: “We have a lot of interested folks and we have got technology that we need to make sure we are investing in properly to make things work. We will move it along as quickly as we can to a fuller integrated state. Stay tuned to this space,” Sorenson told Hotelier.