Hotels of J.W. Marriott

JW Marriott Hotel is a multinational corporation headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, Washington DC, which hosts a wide group of hospitals. J. Willard Marriott founded it in 1927, when in Washington, D.C. he opened a root beer. Later it was enlarged to a chain of restaurants and hotels. The first hotel in Arlington, Virginia is Twin Bridges Marriott Motor (Chathoth, 2016).
Since then, the hotel is one of the best hotels in the United States and world-wide. This paper assesses some of the major contributing factors for its growth.
1.Creating value for Customers – Customers who mostly use the hotel’s services in the USA include wedding couples, people seeking accommodation for a night, a week , or a month, tourists either from within or outside the country, guests seeking luxury and relaxation, and those yearning for entertainment, as well as contractual customers from other companies and organizations.
Growth and development of a business is obtained through proper marketing, specifically by creating value for customers. Marketing involves promoting, selling, market research, and advertising of products and services provided by a certain business. J. W. Marriott Hotel uses several concepts to create value to its customers. Such may include:
• Loyalty programs, through providing special offers to a limited number of customers
• Providing inclusive services such as free breakfast, extra services to special customers like honeymoon couple, providing different settings to their rooms depending on the time of the year, and appreciating different cultures by offering various cuisines based on cultural practices.
• Providing discounted prices and rewards to loyal customers.
• Giving the customers extra products and services such as water bottles, note books, welcome notes, welcoming language by the staff, and providing more information on services provided by the hotel.
2. The mission statement of J. W. Marriott Hotel is, “To enhance the lives of our customers by creating and enabling unsurpassed vacation and leisure experiences.” This mission statement has more focus on the customer. It makes both the potential and existing customers to yearn for the hotel’s services due to the promising experience in the statement. I would recommend a slight modification on the statement so that it does not limit the hotel on vacation and leisure alone, to one that reads like this, “To create an enabling experience for our customers by providing satisfying services” (Gregersen, & Black, 2002).
The mission statement is supported by a vision statement that reads, “To become the premiere provider and facilitator of leisure and vacation experiences in the world.”
3. One of the major strengths of the J. W. Marriott Hotel is the continuous technical innovations that aim towards improving customer experiences and upgrading business processes. It was the first hotel worldwide to introduce online booking of hotel rooms and services in 1995. Recently, it has worked towards enhancing its services by responding to the needs of its customers and that of the business through use of the latest technology, by improving the website to a more interactive platform (Chathoth, 2016).
The implication of this is constant growth in business and gaining competitive advantage over its competitors.
The Hotel’s weakness includes the lack of low-cost products in its brands like is the case with its competitors. This implies a continuous decrease in market share in the US as customers seek for more affordable services in the other emerging hotels and resorts.
One of the greatest opportunities of the J. W. Marriott Hotel is innovation in customer services. Customers seek for greater satisfaction and convenience brought about by more innovative services. Through innovation, the hotel will get more and more customers, leading to expansion and growth (Chathoth, 2016).
The biggest threat of the Marriott Hotel is the several international competitive brands which are well established in the US. These include the Hilton Hotels and Resorts, Starwood Hotels and Resorts, and the Taj Hotels. The implication from these established hotels is a decrease in market share, slow growth, retrenchment, and finally closure of some of its branches (Chathoth, 2016).
4. Competitive Analysis
Criteria Accommodation service by
J. W. Marriott Hotel Accommodation service by
Hilton Hotels and Resorts Accommodation service by
Starwood Hotels and Resorts
Price 2 4 4
Quality of service 4 2 3
Convenience 4 4 3
Total 10 10 10The total ranking of the three hotels is similar. However, the ranking of each criterion for a particular hotel is different, with convenience getting the highest score among the three criteria. From the above results, it is clear that competitors have a different competitive advantage when different criteria are used in determining the best hotel to receive services from. Marriott Hotel has a competitive advantage when it comes to the quality of service and convenience of receiving services by customers than its competitors. However, when a customer decides to consider price as the determinant of choosing the hotel to receive services from, then Hilton and Starwood are advantaged. This shows that competitors can easily overtake the market of an existing business if the right measures to adjust to the changing trends are not taken into consideration.
Part 2 – Customer Satisfaction, Loyalty, Management and Empowerment Directions
1. Customer Empowerment – Customer empowerment is the state of appreciating consumer feedback and concerns, as well as working towards their needs and desires. Marriott Hotel has provided several platforms where customers can share their views and communicate about anything concerning the hotel services. These platforms include direct mail, the company website (Marriott.com), and social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. The Company has a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system called the Marriott Rewards Program that gives customers the opportunity to interact with the company’s staff directly through constant engagement and interaction (Plaza, Coronado, Coronado, & Center, 2014).
Apart from the online platforms, they also conduct workshops that aim towards empowering their guests, including personal empowerment. Through the hotel’s contact us page, Marriott gives its customers the opportunity to express their views and concerns (Plaza, et al., 2014).
2. Customer Satisfaction – J. W. Marriott uses its online platforms including its website, email and social media to enable customers express their dissatisfaction. It has recently advanced its website to provide a customer–friendly site where customers are able to plan for their perfect vacation using multiple features depending on destination, vacation packages, resorts and hotel directory. The customer is then guided on planning for the vacation based on their desires. This enables customers to freely interact and share their views about the hotel’s services (Akincilar, Aykan, and Dagdeviren, 2014)
3. Customer Relationship Management – Customer relationship management is the strategies, practices, and technologies employed by companies to constantly manage customer interactions with the aim of retaining customers and improving business relationship with customers. J. W. Marriott’s Marriott Rewards Program aims at maintaining a positive image for the hotel, to bring and retain customers, as well as to increase the performance of the hotel. However, its main objective is to get loyal and qualified customers of the hotel. Through the program, when a customer spends a single dollar, they earn ten points, which multiplies depending on their loyalty. The points are then redeemed with rewards given to the customer by the hotel (Akincilar, et al., 2014)
4. Customer privacy – J.W. Marriott Hotel has a privacy policy published on its website. It provides detailed information on the information a potential or existing customer should provide to the support staff, and that which they should not provide for security purposes.
In cases of breaching of personal information, the customer is advised to contact the support staff, as well as go through helpful steps described in the policy to protect their information. The policy provides the customer with all the necessary information required for personal security of information before they interact or engage in any activity concerning the hotel (Akincilar, et al., 2014).
Conclusion
J.W. Marriott provides hotel and hospitality services to millions of people across the world. Through continuous advancement in technology and service delivery, it has managed to globally compete with other international companies in the same industry through provision of quality services, while considering customer satisfaction.References
Akincilar, Aykan, and Metin Dagdeviren, M. (2014). A hybrid multi-criteria decision making model to evaluate hotel websites. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 36, 263-271.
Chathoth, P.K. (2016). Historical evolution of hotel chains. The Routledge Handbook of Hotel Chain Management, 27.
Gregersen, H. B., & Black, J. S. (2002). JW Marriott, jr., on growing the legacy. The Academy of Management Executive, 16(2), 33-39 Retrieved from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriott_International
Plaza, B. P., Hotel, P. L. V., West, M. P., Hotel, R. P., del Coronado, H., Coronado, C. A., … & Center, M. C. (2014). 2014 Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancer Symposium Co-sponsored by ASTRO, ASCO, and the American Head and Neck Society February 20-22, 2014 JW Marriott Camelback Inn Resort and Spa. Thyroid, 24(2).