Marriott Rewards (including Ritz-Carlton) - WSJ: Marriott to Invest Billions in New Hotels

Here is the article (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303703004577475383271200696.html?m od=WSJ_hps_LEFTTopStories)

BEIJING— Marriott International Inc. MAR +1.05% plans to invest $2 billion to open new hotels over the next three years, even as the travel market faces headwinds in the U.S. and Europe.

Marriott, whose brands include Courtyard, Residence Inn and Ritz-Carlton, expects to sign or open 90,000 to 105,000 hotel rooms world-wide this year through 2014, said Tony Capuano, chief development officer for Marriott, Tuesday at an analysts meeting in Beijing. The hotel company currently has more than 630,000 rooms globally.

An estimated 30% of investments will be dedicated to opening Marriott's Edition brand, a boutique-style brand aimed at catering to younger affluent travelers, Mr. Capuano said.

The Bethesda, Md., company's announcement comes as the hotel industry faces uphill challenges with rocky economies in Europe and the U.S. and as many are shifting their focus to emerging markets.

While Marriott will continue to open hotels in North America, much of the company's growth will hone in on Asia, where China is becoming an increasingly critical part of the hotel company's business, Mr. Capuano said. He said the company will open more luxury hotels, adding to the company's 110 signed hotels in China.

In India and Brazil, Marriott will open its lower-end Fairfield hotel chain to reach the expanding middle class, Mr. Capuano said.

Now if they would only invest in attracting previously loyal Marriott Rewards members.

Oops--maybe I should not say this publicly......

Guess we'll get yet another devaluation in the next few months.

Or a change in policy to exclude elites getting breakfast at ALL brands (not just resorts and CY plus FS on weekends).

to bad they have chosen these location preferences as except for the Copenhagen, Malmo & Stockholm Marriotts they sure could use a presence in Scandinavia............... perhaps they could buy Scandic (similar to their recent acquisition of AC's)........... I know it didn't work out for Hilton, but Marriott isn't the same as big-bad H............

Here is the article (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303703004577475383271200696.html?m od=WSJ_hps_LEFTTopStories)

BEIJING— Marriott International Inc. MAR +1.05% plans to invest $2 billion to open new hotels over the next three years, even as the travel market faces headwinds in the U.S. and Europe.

While Marriott will continue to open hotels in North America, much of the company's growth will hone in on Asia, where China is becoming an increasingly critical part of the hotel company's business, Mr. Capuano said. He said the company will open more luxury hotels, adding to the company's 110 signed hotels in China.

In India and Brazil, Marriott will open its lower-end Fairfield hotel chain to reach the expanding middle class, Mr. Capuano said.

You'd think that Tokyo, with a population of 35 million in the metropolitan area, might be worthy of a FS Marriott or Ren one day.

The newspaper article is somewhat misleading.

Marriott itself does not invest even one dime in new hotels.

Hotel developers/owners do. They approach Marriott with a proposal--and then assemble financing to make the project happen.

The newspaper article is somewhat misleading.

Marriott itself does not invest even one dime in new hotels.

Hotel developers/owners do. They approach Marriott with a proposal--and then assemble financing to make the project happen.

I was going to post the same thing (note: the exception is the Edition brand where MI is putting up a lot of green)

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 4: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_1_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9B206 Safari/7534.48.3)

Please open more Marriott in Japan and Taiwan (which is a SPG playground)

i wish some $$$ would be invested by someone in the sad, old, worn properties that i've stayed in recently

Now if they would only invest in attracting previously loyal Marriott Rewards members.

In the type of markets they're talking about in the article, or at least in the Asian Marriotts I've been to, they are doing things to reward loyal members. In particular, concierge lounges open all week with nice breakfast spreads in the morning and free hors d'oeuvres and cocktails in the evening.

The newspaper article is somewhat misleading.

Marriott itself does not invest even one dime in new hotels.

Hotel developers/owners do. They approach Marriott with a proposal--and then assemble financing to make the project happen.

The only major brands of anything that still own a significant amount of operations are retail stores.

Subway is all franchise operated, Coke is distributed through other bottler companies, and the list goes on.

Having worked for Subway, I don't think I could ever be an owner of one considering the franchisee has to purchase Subway only products i.e. napkins, cups, etc. That's where the real money in any brand is; branding rights.