Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Hospitality: Marriott Case

This report analyzes innovation and entrepreneurship within the tourism and hospitality industry, focusing on the Marriott hotel chain in India. It explores how Marriott adapts to technological advancements and demographic changes, highlighting guest-facing innovations like mobile apps and voice assistants. The report examines Marriott's applied creativity and innovation model, emphasizing collaboration, ideation, implementation, and value creation. It also addresses challenges such as data security, online reputation management, and evolving customer expectations. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of technology in enhancing guest experiences while acknowledging the continued significance of human interaction. It references several academic sources to support its analysis and findings, presenting a comprehensive overview of Marriott's approach to innovation and entrepreneurship in a dynamic market.

Innovation and entrepreneurship in tourism and hospitality

Innovation and entrepreneurship in tourism and hospitality
1
Contents
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................2
Innovation and entrepreneurship in the hospitality and tourism industry...............................................2
Challenges due to technological advances and demographic changes...................................................5
Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................6
References.............................................................................................................................................7

Innovation and entrepreneurship in tourism and hospitality
2
Introduction
The innovation and entrepreneurship in the tourism and hospitality industry have
undergone several changes in the last years because of the advancement in technology and
demography. The innovation has championed as a way to cope with the changes taking place
in the tourism and hospitality industry. The thing which is constant in hospitality is ‘change’.
The hospitality industry can not be discussed without discussing the disruption. The IT
(Information Technology) is required to keep up with the emerging trends in order to avoid
disappointing guests and the rivalries lacking behind. The IT department focuses on
improving the experience of the customers in order to bring them back.
This report includes the challenges faced by the IT department of Marriott Hotel,
India due to technological advances and demographic changes. Although Marriott is a
pioneer when it comes to hotel technology revolution majorly with reverence to guest facing
technologies. The hotel has to struggle with the digital aspects concerned with the guest
experience. The digital aspects have a great role in enhancing the overall experience of the
guests. There are customers who do not want to just stay in the Marriott Hotel in India but
like to communicate on a regular basis through technological tools. The hotel also makes an
available range of tools across the whole digital landscape.
Innovation and entrepreneurship in the hospitality and tourism industry
Marriott is an American international hotel chain managing a portfolio of hotels with
the lodging facilities. Marriott has thirty brands and is the third-largest hotel chain globally.
Other than India, Marriott operates in 130 nations. Marriott has more than 100 hotels in India
covering all the major cities. Marriott has marked a significant milestone in India. Marriott is
growing its leadership presence in India with over fifty signed projects in its pipeline. India is
deliberated to be one of the significant markets in Asia with the highest number of hotels
after China.
Marriott focuses on improving the overall experience of the guests. The digital facets
of the guest experience have been given the greatest significance in current years. Such
features comprise all from the procedure of reserving a room to fetching with customer
service to the modified mobile experiences. Marriott in India has introduced a great number
of technologies empowered initiatives. Less-buzzworthy initiatives enhance the quality
offered to the guests. The personalized app experiences offered by the hotel with the mobile

Innovation and entrepreneurship in tourism and hospitality
3
check-in, mobile requests, and mobile key show how Marriott pursues to power technology
in the innovative conducts to link with the guests. The increasing popularity of the text
messages has encouraged Marriott to launch mobile request features on the mobile app in
2015. It permits guests to chat directly with the hotel acquaintances. The hotel attained 2.5
million requests within two years and almost 50% of them even checked in. the success of
this initiative provoked the hotel to enlarge the guest-facing mobile communication choices
comprising chatbots for the Marriott reward associates (Kallmuenzer, 2018).
To lead with the innovations, Marriott lead with guest-facing innovations. The hotel
signed up for the foremost hotel chain to provide Alexa for hospitality which can be
obtainable at Marriott chains. The Alexa for hospitality assimilates with prevailing facilities
and services to make guest’s virtual caretaker. It has been planned to ease everyday jobs for
the guests such as playing music, supervising room-temperature, lightning, calling and
finding local restaurants (Narangajavana, et al. 2016). This technology has been
accomplished by Volara, benefactor of custom voice-based resolutions to the hospitality
industry. Marriott has even collaborated with Samsung and Legrand to form a ‘smart room’
where all the devices will have a role in responding to the voice initiation. The guestroom lab
discovers notions that have the capability to not only uplift the guest understanding but will
contribute to the global sustainability goals (King, et al. 2018).
The applied creativity and innovation model is used by Marriott India in order to
seizure an innovation premium with cautious creative thinking.

Innovation and entrepreneurship in tourism and hospitality
4
The objective of applied creativity and innovation model is to form an extensive range
of personnel like leaders, managers, and experts. This model is executed by the Marriott to
promote applied creativity and innovation. The creativity and innovation model in Marriott
comprehend a simple effective procedure of the divergent convergent thinking to discover
innovative resolutions to the business challenges. The model makes use of the creative
thinking models to contribute to the improvement activities of the organization and address
the potential problems. Marriott is able to maintain the capability to advance bold new ideas
that assist in organizational innovation. Marriott regularly follows to the applied creativity
and innovation model to attain the benefits. The hotel has been successful in dealing
creatively with the critical situation by making use of the model. It has even resulted in
making faster and better decisions. Marriott has managed productive teams along with
maintaining activities in an effective manner (Ateljevic & Li, 2017). The usage of the model
plan, manage and execute solutions systematically and effectively. The innovation ideas
made possible through the model effectively manage the cost of the organization and grows
the top line of the organization. It has even prevented potential problems of Marriott creating
the problem in advancing and promoting innovative ideas that assist business goals. The
applied creativity and innovation model offers simple and effective tools to discover
problems with the range of techniques (García-Villaverde, et al. 2017).
The elements comprised by the applied creativity and innovation model are
collaboration, ideation, implementation, and value creation. This model believes that
teamwork has a great role in getting things accomplished. The challenges faced by Marriott
due to technological and demographic changes are complex but diverse minds can break
down silos. The collaboration is never easy due to conflict and competition prevailing in the
marketplace (Mooney & Slobodian, 2016). But the collaboration in Marriott leads to
intellectual efforts such as activating the creative capital of each person and produce value for
the organization. The collaborative procedure is about working together and think together to
work on critical tasks. On the other side, ideation states to the new and fresh ideas in order to
stand out. The ideation leads to the expansion focusing on the business plans and operational
effectiveness. The ideation concentrates on market intelligence, market dynamics, strategy,
and leadership. Marriott has been successful in exploring business activities in the local areas
of India made possible by the applied creativity and innovation model. It even offers
organizations with the up to date information concerning the performance of the business (Fu,
et al. 2019).

Innovation and entrepreneurship in tourism and hospitality
5
The implementation is about putting good ideas to use. Marriott engages with
effective staff in order to convert great ideas into reality. The technology innovations in the
organization are executed at the lightning speed. The organization collaborates with the
leaders to utilize new tools and innovations to perform market analytics. The implementation
of the model in Marriott has resulted in identifying investment opportunities that cannot be
vindicated by making use of traditional data sources. It has even assisted the organization in
determining the superior community and economic advancement strategies. It even results in
better focusing on the target market. On the other side, the organization executes ideas and
programs with the aim of value creation. The major purpose of applied creativity and
innovation model is forming business value (Marasco, et al. 2018). The value like
incremental improvements is used to create new services in the organization. It results in
creating innovative services with reducing costs. Marriott pursues to create value for the
endurance, growth, and capability to compete in a fast-changing environment. Marriott has
even succeeded by doing experiments such as joint ventures in some cities of India. As the
hotel does not have the need to create awareness. The existing customers are loyal ones for a
longer period of time (Lam & Law, 2019).
Challenges due to technological advances and demographic changes
The advancement in technology is changing the hotel industry. The innovation in
technology has a greater role in giving fast responses to customers. Marriott faces challenges
when it comes to offering tailored guest experiences. Due to technology, Marriott also faces
data security challenges. It has become a great concern for the hotel. The challenges are faced
in the form of digital data theft, virus attacks and leakage of the confidential data (Watty,
McKay & Ngo, 2016). Marriott also faces challenges in maintaining an online reputation.
The internet-savvy operators first view for the brand reputation before looking at a hotel
room. Maintaining an online reputation has become a great concern for the Marriott. The
hotel remains quite busy managing rest operations of the hotel, so it becomes quite difficult to
maintain the online reputation which has a great role in the image of Marriott (De Lange &
Dodds, 2017).
The demographic changes also create challenges in the case of Marriott. The changing
behavior of the customers and expectations create a challenge for the hotel. The IT
department of Marriott India daily tackles challenges on a regular basis due to the changing
expectations of the customers. Mobile obsession and personalized experiences also create

Innovation and entrepreneurship in tourism and hospitality
6
challenges for the Marriott. The social media has a great role in building the image of the
hotel. The comments on social media channels and online reviews affect the mindset of the
customers (Alegre & Berbegal-Mirabent, 2016). The customers nowadays go through several
channels before booking the room. They make use of several filters before coming to an
option. The hotel lacking even one factor can be removed from the filter.
Conclusion
The guest-facing innovations are experimental in Marriott. The hotel seems to be
comprehended that the hotel remains dedicated to the approved innovative technologies along
with the digital competences which improve the experiences of the guest. The mobile apps
have a great role in revolutionizing the experience of the customers related to technology.
Although, Marriott has seemed to be understood that technological advancements can never
swap with face-to-face human interaction. But technology has freed up the hotel personnel to
better oblige its guests by more pertinent and modified experiences. Marriott India has
attained widespread tributes for technology innovations. The hotel has even ranked in the top
twenty five list for the two years on Forbe’s Globe’s most pioneering companies. Marriott
has also come up with the leading digital innovation like mobile check-in, check-out, and
room ready alerts. On the other side, Marriott is trying to sort out the IT issues faced by the
customers by offering regular updates in the Marriott mobile app.

Innovation and entrepreneurship in tourism and hospitality
7
References
Alegre, I., & Berbegal-Mirabent, J. (2016). Social innovation success factors: hospitality and
tourism social enterprises. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality
Management, 28(6), 1155-1176.
Ateljevic, J., & Li, L. (2017). Tourism entrepreneurship–concepts and issues. In Tourism and
entrepreneurship (pp. 30-53). Routledge.
De Lange, D., & Dodds, R. (2017). Increasing sustainable tourism through social
entrepreneurship. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality
Management, 29(7), 1977-2002.
Fu, H., Okumus, F., Wu, K., & Köseoglu, M. A. (2019). The entrepreneurship research in
hospitality and tourism. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 78, 1-12.
García-Villaverde, P. M., Elche, D., Martínez-Pérez, Á., & Ruiz-Ortega, M. J. (2017).
Determinants of radical innovation in clustered firms of the hospitality and tourism
industry. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 61, 45-58.
Kallmuenzer, A. (2018). Exploring drivers of innovation in hospitality family
firms. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 30(3), 1978-
1995.
King, B., Fishman, E. K., Horton, K. M., & Rowe, S. P. (2018). The Incipient Digital
Revolution in Hospitality and Health Care: Digital Is Hospitable. Journal of the
American College of Radiology, 15(9), 1351-1353.]
Lam, C., & Law, R. (2019). Readiness of upscale and luxury-branded hotels for digital
transformation. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 79, 60-69.
Marasco, A., De Martino, M., Magnotti, F., & Morvillo, A. (2018). Collaborative innovation
in tourism and hospitality: A systematic review of the literature. International Journal
of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 30(6), 2364-2395.
Mooney, M., & Slobodian, S. (2016). Seeing the wood for the trees: Fixing large undefined
problems in digital marketing. Journal of Digital & Social Media Marketing, 3(4),
294-303.

Innovation and entrepreneurship in tourism and hospitality
8
Narangajavana, Y., Gonzalez-Cruz, T., Garrigos-Simon, F. J., & Cruz-Ros, S. (2016).
Measuring social entrepreneurship and social value with leakage. Definition, analysis
and policies for the hospitality industry. International Entrepreneurship and
Management Journal, 12(3), 911-934.
Watty, K., McKay, J., & Ngo, L. (2016). Innovators or inhibitors? Accounting faculty
resistance to new educational technologies in higher education. Journal of Accounting
Education, 36, 1-15.