Marriott is on a Mission

Marriott’s Global Sales Mission is an opportunity for  partners and customers for alliances. Ramesh Daryanani, Vice President, Global Sales—Asia Pacific (excluding Greater China), tells us more…

Anupriya Bishnoi

Q Tell us about the Sales Mission.

The roadshow (Global Sales Mission) provides a platform to hoteliers across the world to meet our most valuable partners in India that drive a significant amount of outbound business. This is a record year for us where we have over 50 hotel participants from around the world, representing over 200 hotels. The platform brings together B2B customers from all segments of the industry. It also gives the brand an opportunity to analyse performance in the past year and evaluate possible business prospects in the existing cities and markets as we grow and expand. The wide and exhaustive showcase of hotels at the event is aimed to bring all the best brands under one roof and make the planning process seamless and interactive for existing as well as potential business partners.

Q Tell us something about your expansion plans.

Globally, we have over 2700 hotels in the pipeline of development. This represents over 460,000 rooms.

“The platform brings together B2B customers from all segments of the industry. It also gives the brand an opportunity to analyse and evaluate possible business prospects in the existing cities and markets as we grow and expand”

Q Which brand of Marriott is the most successful in India and why?

I think the JW brand overall is well-recognised and known. All brands are successful, but I think the brand that has been able to establish itself well in India is JW. It started with the launch of the first JW in Juhu, and today we have over 13 JWs across the country.

Q Why the sudden surge in the Fairfield by Marriott segment?

I think, in our Fairfield segment, there was a need for quality accommodation. We have been able to tweak the demands of the customers and have been able to plant these hotels in the right location where customers want that type of accommodation. That’s why the Fairfields have been extremely successful and our partner SAMHI has been tremendous in our journey. Also, we see this brand expanding in Tier-II and III cities. We have six in the pipeline over the next year or so.

Q What challenges do you witness being the biggest hospitality player in the world?

We don’t take anything for granted, but one challenge which is always there is that once you grow you still want to make sure that you are relevant to your customers and you are constantly innovating so that you are ahead of the pack. That said, we are well-positioned to tackle all those challenges. I think, in the innovation space with new partnerships, the one with Alibaba in China, we are trying to own the customer journey from end to end. That’s where our mission has changed. A few years ago, we wanted to be the world’s favourite hospitality company; now we want to be the world’s favourite travel company, and that really changes the direction in terms of how we operate and what the vision of the company is going forward.

Q Are there new Marriott brands coming to India?

We do have plans to launch not just Moxy, but others as well. We are in discussion about where these new brands will be launched, but we are very optimistic that we will launch a new brand in the next six months to a year.