Originally Posted by
hockeyinsider
It should be noted that Marriott manages more (perhaps even most) of its full-service hotels internationally, unlike here in North America where most of the hotels, full-service and limited-service, are managed by third-party management companies.
Within North America, Marriott general managers, both Marriott employees and third-party management company employees, are pretty good about throwing points at you for customer service recovery. Of course, I'm more interested in fixing the problem or issue so it doesn't happen again.
Sadly, I think most of the time they just throw points at you, hoping you'll go away and they won't have to deal with this again. I say that because I've returned to properties only to see the same issues reoccur.
Generally, Marriott-managed properties are better.
I've said this in other threads but I think part of the problem is who works at hotels.
Internationally, particularly in Europe or Southeast Asia, working at a big international branded hotel is prestigious. Many of the employees, even front desk clerks and junior manages, are young, well-educated, and working toward a career as a hotelier.
In the United States, that's less so. Yes, the general manager most likely studied hotel management but many of the other employees are just doing this as a "job" and not a career. They aren't nearly as polished. There's for sure a noticeable difference. You even notice it in restaurants, where front-of-the-house staff don't know how to properly serve food, pour wine, or set a table because being a waitress or bartender is just a "job." By contrast, you have say Paris where they have waiter schools and people will spend a career as a waiter.
It reminds me of a friend who owns a company. He said he would rather hire someone with no experience who he could then train and put on a path toward a career than someone who has held a lot of jobs and will bring bad habits and may leave as soon as they find something else.
I think it's even worse in the USA. I suspect that few of the Marriott family general managers have hotel management degrees, for example at limited service and other lower tier brands, which are the majority of Marriott family hotels.
In fact, in the USA there are few hotel management programs. Cornell and NYU are very prestigious (with many of their graduates going into hotel finance and hotel real estate rather than real hotel management) and IIRC there are some in Nevada, but it's not a common program in USA colleges and universities. I suspect that most GMs have the same sort of training as the manager of a large fast food place or family dining chain restaurant, convenience store, chain drug store, etc., which isn't much.
OTOH, I've talked with servers in Southeast Asia hotel lounges who were very proud of doing this as an internship on the way to a hospitality degree is one of their country's more prestigious institutions. I've seen front desk managers and loyalty managers who were obviously multilingual foreigners moving around for international experience on their way up. It may help that in some of these countries' labor markets, educated woman have traditionally been relegated to serving tea and similar duties. Also, traditionally, young people live at home until marriage, so lower salaries may be more acceptable and still permit them to buy the luxury brand clothing and cosmetic products/services that would be expected if work doesn't require that a uniform be worn.
In Europe there are some hotel schools where students enter at age 15-19 (instead of going to university--more like a trade school) as well as the MBA programs that specialize on the "luxury segment." Otherwise, traditional universities wouldn't have hotel departments/programs and the MBA is a relatively new degree that's more commonly offered by private stand-alone business schools that aren't part of a university, such as INSEAD, or HEC for a very prestigious "public" example. England is somewhat different.