Marriott International Inc.

Marriott International Inc.

Issue

Marriot International Inc. which is a global operator and franchisor of a wide variety of luxury and mid-scaled hotels, have declined in their profit margins and revenues over the past three years [1]. This can be attributed to the Marriott's lack of low cost life style brand.

Evidence

Having only the luxury and mid-scaled brands make the Marriott vulnerable to global economic downturns. During the recent economic crisis, the hospitality sector was affected badly especially the luxury and mid-scaled hotels felt the pinch heavily. Since Marriott possess only these luxury and mid-scaled brands, it should look into the low cost life style brands which was the only growing hospitality sector in the emerging markets even during the global downturn.

Importance

As company's vision also does not stand in the way for this fact which says that it aims to become the premiere provider and facilitator of leisure and vacation experiences in the world. The hotel group owns very limited hotels and a major portion of the hotels are franchised or managed. This also makes the company limited to restructuring investments and capital investments. With this kind of limitation, the hotel group's next big venture can be the low cost life style brands which will have less investment and can add to the assets to the company. With increased competition in the developed markets and to offset this negative impact, it has to capitalize on developing markets which have a huge potential for low cost life style brands. There is a problem of credit crunch. When the consumers spend less in the short term, the franchisees that the Marriott