Marriott International CEO Arne Sorenson spoke last week at the Luxury Summit organized by Time Inc. brands Departures, Travel + Leisure and Food & Wine, held at the Ritz-Carlton Naples. After he spoke, Editor in Chief Arnie Weissmann sat down with him to discuss his company's six luxury hospitality brands: Ritz-Carlton, Ritz-Carlton Reserve, Bulgari, Edition, JW Marriott and some Autograph properties.
Q: Last year at this conference, Starwood CEO Frits van Paasschen took a direct shot at Ritz-Carlton. He said, "'Ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen' may be a credo for the ages, but it's sure not for today." He went on to say that there was a new luxury traveler who doesn't want what are generally thought of as signature Ritz-Carlton service elements. Do you think the luxury traveler has changed so much that Ritz-Carlton's slogan, and service, aren't relevant?
A: No. I wasn't here last year, and I won't get into a tit for tat. But I think criticizing Ritz-Carlton for its service equation is like criticizing Germans for their engineering or Italians for their cuisine.
Service does evolve; the service I want is different from the service that my parents would have wanted. But good service, I want. And the Ritz-Carlton service culture is one of our absolute best advantages.
The brand has enormous strength and momentum. It's at an all-time high in revenue per available room. In the last two or three years, it has taken five points of market share, which is massive, absolutely massive.
Q: You consider JW Marriott to be a luxury brand, but to me it's the least defined in your luxe portfolio. What words do you use to describe the varied experiences and varied properties and varied locations of the JW?
A: We talk about accessible luxury. Luxury without, maybe, as much show. I think you've got to take these words as directional, not necessarily that they are incredibly bright lines that distinguish one from another. But as a directional matter, we would say JW Marriott's probably a bit less fancy, a bit less expensive in like-for-like markets.
Q: So there's a place for a guest who feels uncomfortable with, say, butler service?
A: I think butler service is an interesting example to use to illustrate the point. I think for many American travelers, butler service is a bit awkward. There's a fine line between attentive service that satisfies your every whim and being overly handled, right? And it's really important for a hotel that has butler service to make sure that they're reading their guest and saying, "All right. He expects to be taken care of well, but doesn't expect to have somebody standing by him all the time." But there are Americans who want butler service, who want everything taken care of instantly, before they even ask. A property team that is trained well modulates that service.
Q: How many Bulgaris do you have at this point?
A: Three: Milan, London and Bali.
Q: The brand is, what, 10 years old? So, three properties in 10 years. Is this a successful brand?
A: We absolutely love it. It is one of the finest hotels, if not the finest, in Milan. London just opened about a year-and-a-half ago as the highest-rated hotel in London, at a thousand-plus pounds a night. Another extraordinary asset. We have four or five more underway, overwhelmingly in Asia. We'd love to have more.
Q: What's stopping you?
A: Extraordinary luxury hotels are expensive to develop and expensive to operate. They tend to be smaller. So for a Bulgari to succeed in an urban market, particularly in the West where labor costs are high, is a challenge. It's doing very well in London and Milan because it can command the rates that are necessary. But in order to command those rates, it's got to be a very special location in a very special box.
Q: In your onstage interview here, you said that you like to come into a new destination with the highest-level brand possible. You're moving into several developing countries, like Haiti, Rwanda. Have you ever had a situation where an owner says "I'd love to have a Ritz-Carlton here," and you're aware that the contrast between the luxury of a Ritz and its host setting would be stark? Would you still move forward going in at the highest level?
A: We want to make sure the hotel's successful. We've had circumstances where the owners have come in and said they've wanted to position a hotel higher than we think is smart. That doesn't tend to be about a political or atmospheric comparison to the local market, but rather is there enough demand at the level to support the hotel? We serve our hotel customers, but we also serve our hotel owners, and we really want to make sure that they're stepping into hotels that are successful financially.
So we put a Marriott, a core Marriott, in Haiti. And that core Marriott might just as well be a Bulgari as far as many of the population is concerned. But it's not about opening a hotel and saying, "Look, we live in a different place." It's just the opposite. It's, let's open a hotel, let's train and put hundreds of people to work. Let's be involved with the schools. Let's be a beacon which says, "Haiti's open for business. You can go and be confident you're going to find a place to stay." It'll be good for the economy, locally. There's nothing about that we need to be apologetic about. We need to be sensitive about doing business and investing in the community and doing things that create lasting change. But not in an obnoxious, ostentatious display.
Email Arnie Weissmann at aweissmann@travelweekly.com and follow him on Twitter.