Marketing Report: Analyzing Marriott Hotels' Strategies and 7Ps

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Marriott Hotels and Resorts, a leading brand in the hospitality industry. It begins with a brief background of the company, including its history, global presence, and ranking. The report then delves into the market conditions, highlighting the competitive landscape with key rivals like Hilton and Hyatt, and discussing Marriott's market share. A significant portion is dedicated to identifying Marriott's target customers, who are primarily affluent business travelers seeking luxurious accommodations. The report examines Marriott's positioning strategies, emphasizing its focus on providing a sophisticated and relaxing environment, and its brand pillars of professional performance, purposeful luxury, and warm culture. The core of the analysis revolves around the 7Ps of marketing: product, price, place, promotion, people, process, and physical evidence, with specific examples of how Marriott implements each element. The report concludes by summarizing Marriott's current success in the industry and its promising future, particularly after the Starwood acquisition. References are included to support the analysis.

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PRINCIPALS OF
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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
A brief background....................................................................................................................2
Market Conditions......................................................................................................................2
Target Customers.......................................................................................................................3
Positioning Strategies.................................................................................................................3
7Ps Approach.............................................................................................................................4
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................6
References..................................................................................................................................7

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Introduction
In today’s competitive world, customer expectations and technologies have changed
faster than marketing organisations and it requires businesses to shift their organisational
model away from “boxes and lines” to a unified ecosystem of external and internal associates
(Rosenfeld, 2017). This report outlines various significant marketing while applying on to
one of the leading hospitality brand named as Marriott Hotels and Resort. The study starts
with a brief introduction about the organisation followed by its market conditions in the
hospitality sector, including competitor influence. Marriott target customers have also been
identified and how the company position its strategies to retain those customers over a longer
period of time. Furthermore, 7Ps in relation with the brand also noted.
A brief background
In 1927, Marriott Hotels and Resorts was incorporated and currently, for the brand
has nearly 30 brands and more than 7000 properties in nearly 131 nations and regions. Forbes
also ranked Marriott at 27th position on its list of Best Companies for Diversity (Valet, 2019).
In 2018, the brand employed nearly 176,000 employees globally. Marriott is on a mission to
form the future over innovation and technology and the brand works on the philosophy where
they put people first as they believe that taking care of personnel will, therefore automatically
take care of the customers.
Market Conditions
The competition in the hospitality sector, particularly among those of equal ratings
such as Marriott Hotels and Hilton, is oligopoly. The top rivals of Marriott include Hyatt,
Hilton, Four Seasons and Accor Group. In terms of revenue, Marriott Global is now the
biggest hotel chain in the domain worth 20.76bn USD in 2018 (Lock, 2019). In terms of 2017
market shares, Marriott Hotels and Resorts holds the highest market share with 13.59%
followed by Hilton and Hyatt with 6.59% and 2.53% respectively (Wilson, 2019). However,
the competition for Marriott is increasing as recently Hilton has undertaken various corners in

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innovations such as five feet to fitness, green hotels, LED walls, kitchen kiosk and many
more (Russell, 2019).
Target Customers
According to Mathew (2017), a target market is a group of individual or sub-segments
from a wider market which an organisation has recognised as its primary customer base.
Marriott Global has effectively put up different target market within the hospitality sector by
mainly targeting the needs for its visitors. The specific target market of Marriott International
is the customer who seeks a luxurious and quite atmosphere during their accommodation. The
average age of the guest is late 20's - early 30's, who earns an average high revenue and
usually trips for corporate objectives. Hence, their guests are mostly self-defined travellers
who are keen to spend large amounts of money on their accommodations while on a business
tour.
Positioning Strategies
The aim of Marriott International is to offer their visitors a modest sophisticated
environment that allows them to sense as relaxed and leisured as likely deprived of any
interruption or disturbance. When it comes to brand positioning, Marriott Hotels and Resort
emphasizes on the individual or Achievement Guests who are ambitious to achieve and
prosper in excellence in relation with own sense of accomplishments (Mody, Suess & Lehto,
2017). Furthermore, Marriott International positioning strategy also related to the three brand
pillars that offer the foundation for the features, services and conveniences. These include -
professional performance, purposeful luxury and warm culture. Recently, Marriott
understated ‘luxury’ positioning drives for Sheraton Hotels with new $500M investment
(Trejos, 2018).

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7Ps Approach
 Product – Marriott International holds a total number of 30 brands after
acquisition of Starwood comprising of the Ritz-Carlton, St. Regis, JW
Marriott, W Hotels and so forth (Ting, 2018). The brand offers premium and
personalised services to its esteemed guests such as air-conditioned and
furnished rooms including various supplementary services like 24*7 internet,
money exchange, banquet bar and many more.
 Price –Marriott pricing strategies rely on targeting upper class customers and
travellers. In 2018, the daily average rate of Marriott Group in North America
was 198.66 U.S. dollars (Lock, 2019a). The brand adopts a premium pricing
strategy due to its offering of value-based prices and services.
 Place – Marriott Hotels and Resorts have more than 7000 properties in nearly
131 nations and regions (Marriott.com, 2019). The brand ensures that all its
hotels and properties to be positioned at prime locations to uphold its
distinctive quality and comprises of strategic locations like highways, near
airports and in other vital parts of the areas.
 Promotion – The brand maintains high brand recall with launching high-
impact ad campaigns and target specific customers to raise its brand
awareness. This is because of their continuous increase in the advertising cost
year by year where advertising costs in 2018 was nearly $660 million, $562
million in 2017 and $ 409 million in 2016 respectively (Marriott.gcs-web.com,
2018).
 People – Till now, Marriott has employed nearly 1, 76, 000employees
globally. At stated above, many top magazines and Forbes ranked the brand as
one of the best employers in the world where people come from different
culture, background and environment and give positive support to the brand
vision.
 Process – The brand undertakes various business procedures in place to
deliver excellence customer services and well-organized reservations. The
brand functions in a transparent way where guest can effectively book their
rooms through online websites and platform and also 24*7.

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 Physical Evidence – Services are basically intangible, however, brand over-
the-top ambience and interior to their guests appeal them and marks their
reappearance in the hotel and hold that understanding.

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Conclusion
It is almost unmanageable to satisfy increasing customers’ needs due to increase in
competition and service offerings by different firms. However, a business can still fulfil its
target market needs while understanding the market tools and approaches effectively.
Marriott is currently doing great in the hospitality industry, offering quality and premium
services to its customers. From future perspective, it is clear that Marriott has its tentacles
spread wide across the industry and with Starwood acquisition, the future of the brand will be
more exciting.

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References
Lock, S. (2019). 14 Hotel Companies Marriott International - Statistics & Facts. Retrieved
from https://www.statista.com/topics/1872/Marriott-international/
Lock, S. (2019a). Average daily rate of Marriott International hotels worldwide from 2010 to
2018, by region. Retrieved from https://www.statista.com/statistics/271127/average-
daily-rate-Marriott-international-inc-hotels-worldwide/
Marriott.gcs-web.com. (2018). Marriott International, Inc. 2018 Annual Report. Retrieved
from https://Marriott.gcs-web.com/static-files/8799734e-b9e0-4e53-b194-
7bd24a381118
Mathew, V. (2017). Marketing of Services: New Paradigm and Perspectives. In Strategic
Marketing Management and Tactics in the Service Industry (pp. 43-73). Oman: IGI
Global.
Mody, M. A., Suess, C., & Lehto, X. (2017). The accommodation experiencescape: a
comparative assessment of hotels and Airbnb. International Journal of Contemporary
Hospitality Management, 29(9), 2377-2404.
Rosenfeld, S. A. (2017). Competitive manufacturing: New strategies for regional
development. New York: Routledge.
Russell, E. (2019). We Visited Hilton’s Innovation Lab. Here Are 7 Things We Learned
About Modern Hotels. Retrieved from https://thepointsguy.com/news/we-visited-
hiltons-innovation-lab-here-are-7-things-we-learned-about-the-future-of-hotels/
Ting, D. (2018). Marriott Finally Reveals How It Will Combine All 3 of Its Loyalty
Programs. Retrieved from https://skift.com/2018/04/16/Marriott-finally-reveals-how-
it-will-combine-all-3-of-its-loyalty-programs/
Trejos, N. (2018). Marriott to revamp Sheraton Hotels brand with major makeover.
Retrieved from https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/hotels/2018/06/05/Marriott-
overhaul-sheraton-brand/674612002/
Valet, V. (2019). The Best Employers For Diversity 2019. Retrieved from
https://www.forbes.com/lists/best-employers-diversity/#41a26f7c6468

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Wilson, M. (2019). Luxury Hotel Market Share, Size, Trends, Segmentation & Growth
Analysis 2019-2024 | Marriott International, Hilton, Hyatt, Shangri-La, Four
Seasons Holdings Inc. Retrieved from
https://www.marketwatch.com/press-release/luxury-hotel-market-share-size-trends-
segmentation-growth-analysis-2019-2024-Marriott-international-hilton-hyatt-shangri-
la-four-seasons-holdings-inc-2019-03-13