Marriott enhances Arab traveller experience with revamped website

Marriott International has relaunched its Arabic website, www.Arabic.marriott.com, to enhance the online customer journey for Arab travellers. With nearly 400 million Arabic speakers in 22 countries, the company said the redesign will now providing an end-to-end solution for a seamless Arabic booking experience.

The relaunch follows the recent announcement detailing the company’s growth plans for the Middle East and Africa region where it plans to expand its current portfolio by 50%, and add 30,000 jobs.

To mark the relaunch, Marriott hosted a Majlis panel joined by Aida Al Busaidy, director, C2C Marketing & Campaigns at DTCM; Talal Al Rashed, co-founder Contourage and Hospitality Consultant; and Vladimir Dabbah, vice president, global sales MEA at Marriott International. The panel discussed the importance of tailoring experiences for the Arab traveller

Arab travellers generate more than double (+162%) room revenue per stay compared to other travellers, and annual revenue per Arab customer is 38% higher than other travellers. In order to cater to the traditional customs of the Arab travellers, symbols of Arab culture should be demonstrated in both communication and on hotel properties.

“To date, we have over 110 million loyalty members around the world across Marriott Rewards, The Ritz-Carlton Rewards & SPG. As the world’s largest hotel operator, we aim to cater to every traveller on the planet, and with the majority of the world booking travel online we continue to enhance our end-to-end customer booking experience,” said Alex Kyriakidis, president and managing director at Marriott International Middle East and Africa.

Marriott is taking a phased approach with the website where over 5,000 Marriott and The Ritz-Carlton Rewards properties globally will be available and bookable in Arabic. Marriott will continue to add localised in-language content and will further improve site’s functionality for the Arab online traveller, a statement said.

SPG properties will be progressively added to the new site between August and year end. Until then, the rooms will remain available for bookings in Arabic at www.spg.com/arabic, the company said.