Marriott’s CEO Takes a 100% Pay Cut
Kaelin Dodge March 24, 2020
Image Source: World Travel & Tourism Council/Wikimedia Commons
CEO Arne Sorenson will receive no salary for the 2020 fiscal year.
Amid the coronavirus, the travel industry is suffering, with airlines and hotels seeing their number rapidly dropping by the week. As a result, Marriott’s CEO Arne Sorenson announced that he will be cutting back his salary to 0 this year and that many other higher-ups will be taking a 50% cut.
While Marriot’s CEO is taking the cut, other chains are laying off employees in an attempt to stay afloat.
A New Approach
With travel at an all-time low, hotels are having to, temporarily, reconsider their business model, now aiming not at individuals but at the government.
In San Francisco, hotel rooms are being reserved by the government as a place to house some of its homeless population, and there are talks elsewhere to turn hotels into temporary hospitals. The pivot comes as fewer and fewer people were checking in and out.
For frequent travelers wondering about their status look here, where we asked hotel chains how their extension policies would change to accommodate individuals in the upcoming year.
And for more information on Marriott, check out our FlyerTalk Forum.
Gee whiz. When did Arne get elected President? The person at the top of a FOR profit company makes a financial sacrifice and . .
No pay or bonus is a good idea for all executives. Let them get stock options only. X number that can be exercised in 6 months, Y number that can be exercised in 1 year, Z number that can be exercised in 2 years. Pay actual workers for their labor with the money that was going to executives. Executives will be able to get great income from the gains from their stock options if the company does well under their leadership. If company does not do well, then they will have actually received the true value of their leadership.
Not the time to judge, but it is indeed likely that he will get plenty of compensation in the form of bonuses and options, as mentioned by others. Hopefully, the board of directors and stockholders take this into consideration. I would also point out that it is rather vindictive to think he actually deserves nothing, he obviously will be very stressed and working very hard to try to save Marriott and as many of it's hotels as possible. Easy for people to be angry and take it out on the CEO, but without a CEO there is no company and there are no jobs!
Shareholders don't often have input on executive compensation. That's the board of directors, who are many times other executives.
No problem — he'll make it up in destination and resort fees.