Marriott: Adapting to Disruption

How can you, as hoteliers, encourage the traveler to stay in hotels? What are you doing, to make the hotel seem safer, be cleaner and really encourage both leisure and business travelers, to stay in your hotel?

I think the first point is really the brand name and the brand is very strong. All the travelers that used to travel to the brand before, they believe in the brand, so they trust the brand and this is the very important point; the trust between the traveler and the hotels. That will be very key, for the success of opening the hotels and having the traveler coming back to us.

The second point is the strong procedures that will be in place. We have proved in the past, for example, if you see in Paris, in September 2015, what happened with the attack. Travel stopped a little bit but then when they saw that the hotel has put all the security measures in place, they started travelling again and coming back to the hotel. I think it will be the same approach, making sure that the travelers are aware of what we are putting in place, to make sure that our employees, our assets but, most importantly, the customers, are safe in the hotel. Also adapting the food and beverages that are offered to them, and not making them feel, okay, I’m going to go to the hotel, but I cannot go to the restaurant because it’s going to be crowded and there is no distancing. No, you can come because we have put everything in place, to make you feel comfortable and safe. That’s where we are going to be able to attract the traveler again.

How did you see demand change, post the Paris attacks?

Post the Paris attacks, demand was very slow, immediately after. Particularly as it happened in September, and it was at the end of the year, with all the holidays and we only started seeing a bit of ramp up in Q2, 2016. People started travelling, because business travelers had to travel, at that time, for meetings and business. The demand started with the business traveler, first. Then in the summertime, we saw an increase in the leisure business.

So from Q3, to the summer next year; almost half a year, nine months, for leisure travel to bounce back. But business travel was what ignited the Paris demand, post the attacks. That’s a bit of a different situation from today, because we have Zoom, for example, which wasn’t prevalent back then?

Exactly. Now we have Zoom, we have all the different platforms that we can use. As I was saying before, I think the business traveler will not start travelling again until Q4 or Q1 next year. That’s what I foresee, for now. The leisure traveler will start travelling again, especially the locals. But the business traveler probably won’t be until the end of Q1, next year.

Could you elaborate more on how you cultivated trust, post the Paris attacks. What did you do with security, to really tell the travelers, look, come and trust our brand; you’re safe here?