Marriott CEO Interview: Speaking Up on Social Issues and Building a Huge Brand
Skift Take
Marriott is already one of the biggest players in the hospitality industry and in a few months, it'll be the biggest. Whatever the company decides to do — whether that's speaking up for LGBT rights and issues or pushing more direct bookings — is having a larger impact on the industry as a whole, and we spoke with CEO Arne Sorenson for his take on those issues, and other big challenges facing hospitality.
Arne Sorenson is a busy man these days. Not only is he busy serving as the president and CEO of Marriott International, but he's also in the midst of closing one of the biggest — and arguably one of the more dramatic — deals to ever take place in hospitality history: the more than $12 billion acquisition of Starwood Hotels & Resorts.
Throughout Marriott's history, and particularly, most recently under Sorenson's leadership, the company has remained a pioneer in a lot of ways, whether it's championing the LGBT rights or being the first major U.S. hotel company to push customers to book direct.
Skift sat down briefly with Sorenson at the annual NYU Hospitality Conference in New York at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square to ask him about what's on his mind, the state of the industry, and what he's looking ahead to achieving once the Starwood deal closes. Here's what he had to say:
Skift: Marriott has often taken public stances on socially divisive issues and hasn't suffered. What does that mean, you think, for the hospitality industry or society as a whole? And do you think other travel and hotel brands are learning from Marriott's example?
Sorenson: I think this is really one of the most interesting things about being in a public company job, is what issues should you speak about? I think the approach we take is we should speak about issues we care about, but we should also speak about issues which are germane to us.
Obviously, we've spoken out on issues like the North Carolina bathroom bill for example and many LGBT issues. It shouldn't surprise you to know that we think that's very germane to our business. We are in the hospitality business and we welcome everybody, whether they be part of our workforce or our guest community and it's really relevant to business. In North Carolina, for example, we think there's a $100 million worth of business which has not been booked into North Carolina because of the bill that has been passed by that state.
That's bad for the business. It's not fair to the people of North Carolina who are hospitable, by and large. We think that's
