Originally Posted by
DELee
Well, there are a multitude of Marriott hotel brands beyond what they call "Luxury" or "Premium". The Select Brands include: Courtyard, Four Points, SpringHill Suites, Fairfield, AC, aloft, moxy, protea (mostly for Africa), City Express and Four Points Express. The Longer Stays include: Residence Inn, Towneplace Suites, element, studiores as well as three others that are unlikely to be used by short term staying business travelers. If your trips take you to places with the Select and Longer Stay Brands, you could ask yourself, if an employee who reported to me said that they'd be interested in trying some of these, what your response would be as well as what would make you want to approve. Similar approach might be taken with your manager. That way, you've at least had the discussion and opened the door to trying places.
David
David,
Interesting suggestion. But this is a bit too much work for too little gain.
If my staff want to try some of those other properties, they are certainly open to try, as long as they do not give me unnecessary busy work. I have no time nor the inclination for that.
Before booking in Concur, we have to seek approval from our managers for the spend. The approval generates a reference number which must be assigned to the Concur booking.
My staff could certainly try a different brand daily for the entire trip, but I would be annoyed if it is was a 5 day business trip and they decided to do 5 different brands thus requesting me to approve 5 different spend for the one trip (that reference code I mentioned can only be used once per booking which will also need to be used to reconcile their expense reports.) I would then have to approve 5 different expense reports for the one trip. Nope! No can do.
I can't fault Marriott for doing what works for it. I'm just not going to play its game and continue to do what works for me. I did hear that Hilton will become the backup later this year. Will see how that pans out.