most managed are not owned. but even when managed, for example, a bad manager can sneak through, in terms of being problematic, or not dealing with problematic staff. we agree that there can be problems drawing conclusions based on, for example, one (unreported) bad manager.

when i say dependent on staff, part of my subtext is majority of staff being local. locations vary. hiring/training/supervising has limitations.

qatar and UAE own a bunch of well regarded starwood hotels. and keep buying more. starwood talks up qatar as an owner partner. there is also a 'private company' in qatar (my prior comment is about government owned hotels) that owns more starwood, and may be connected to government, but i have not really seen much discussion along those lines.