I wouldn't think its a bad thing for high end corporate to spend time "on the ground" interacting with actual customers and employees (other than the select few that might get flown to Stamford for meetings).

Before graduating law school I worked all kinds of service jobs, and many of the businesses I worked for could have benefited for upper management that actually knew what happened on the ground. Perhaps this really does help Starwood, both in quality of service offered and in making connections with local business leaders.