Originally published by Arne Sorenson on LinkedIn: A New Journey Begins
Today is the day two pioneers in the travel industry become one. The Marriott International family now includes half-a-million people, hospitality’s finest, welcoming guests in more than 110 countries everywhere from Chicago to Cape Town to Tokyo to Bali.
This is a milestone day for us and I am well aware that it has come to pass because of the hard work of our associates, the loyalty of our guests, the commitment of owners and franchisees, and the support of the communities where we live and work. That’s why our focus is to be far more than the largest hotel company in the world. We aim to be the best.
How? By committing to excellence, encouraging the innovative spirit embedded within both companies, offering the broadest portfolio across the globe and nurturing a culture like no other.
Regardless of the property, we’re going to continue to conduct our business based on our five core values: put people first, pursue excellence, embrace change, act with integrity, and serve our world. Our core values make us who we are, and as we fully integrate our teams, we’ll uphold our people-first environment and ensure that everyone is treated with the utmost respect.
With those principles guiding us, we can now go even further in delivering more choices, benefits, and opportunities to our guests, owners, franchisees, and associates and more value to shareholders. Combining Starwood’s brands with ours better enables Marriott to reach our goal of having the right brand in the right place to serve our guests. We now operate, own or franchise more than 5,700 properties with more than 1.1 million rooms across 30 brands, ranging from the moderate to luxury tier.
Our distribution in Europe and Asia combined has doubled. We will have the most rooms in Asia, the Middle East and Africa region, and throughout North America. Our reach will keep expanding – worldwide we have the largest signed new construction pipeline with 333,000 additional rooms in the works.
Today also brings together the hospitality industry’s best-in-class loyalty programs — Marriott Rewards, which includes The Ritz-Carlton Rewards, and Starwood Preferred Guest. We know each program has devoted followings and terrific benefits that make them unique. Today, members will be able to link their memberships. We plan to be deliberate in continuing to listen as we bring together the very best of each program and offer members enhanced benefits and full access to our global portfolio.
Sometimes less noticed, but no less important, is the responsibility to the communities where we live and work and to the world around us. We welcome this. Marriott and Starwood both have deep commitments to sustainable practices, economic development, job readiness and community involvement.