Summary
BY DAVID EISEN @DAVIDEISEN3
Know it or not, your digital footprint is wide and far, and companies are taking advantage of that data to predict your next move. It’s enough to make the most implacable unsettled, but companies are mining this valu- able information just the same. Marriott International, for one.
The Bethesda, Md.-based hotel operator and franchisor is a powerhouse. With its acquisi- tion of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, it now com- mands 30 brands and has more than 6,000 properties in 122 countries and territories, encom- passing more than 1.2 million rooms. According to Lodging Econometrics, Marriott is fore- casted to open 351 hotels with 43,587 rooms in 2018, 31 per- cent of all U.S. hotels expected to open. Lodging Econometrics also reports that Marriott has the largest franchise pipeline in the U.S. with 1,410 projects and 180,647 rooms.
And it wants to keep it that way. In order to do so, Marriott is in a constant race to cultivate new customers, retain legacy ones and sign and open new hotels in new markets. Part of that job falls to Eric Jacobs, who is the chief development officer for Marriott International – U.S. and Canada. Jacobs is respon-
sible for franchise and managed growth for Marriott’s select brands, which are Courtyard, Sheraton, Four Points, Sprin- gHill Suites, Fairfield Inn and Suites, AC by Marriott, Aloft, Moxy, Residence Inn, Element by Westin and TownePlace Suites.
That’s a lot of brands and there is only so much dirt. “We have to be smarter about how we place our brands,” Jacobs said during the Americas Lodging In- vestment Summit. “What is the business case? Part of branding is making sure we deliver the right product [for our guests] that is best for our investor.”
DATA DIVE To help make that happen, Mar- riott enlisted Buxton, a customer analytics company based in Fort Worth, Texas. There is no lack of available data: household profile, including number of kids; type of jobs held by family members; their salaries; where and how they spend their money and even the type of jeans they buy: “Levi’s or Gap,” Jacobs said.
Buxton manages more than 300 unique data sets and has ac- cess to data from an astonishing- ly high 116 million households, said Jack Hall, Buxton’s VP of strategic accounts. The company helps brands identify who their customer is, where they live and
work and what’s their overall value to the brand.
“By looking at the number of times someone travels—for business or leisure—where they live and what they travel for, we can understand, by brand, where the unmet demand is for additional hotels and help identify where that demand is nationally, by market and region,” Hall said.
The level and granularity of data is what makes consumer analytics a veritable gold mine of information. Companies like Buxton monitor and collect data patterns, but it’s up to their clients to turn the data into ac- tion because, as Buxton SVP Bill Stinneford pointed out, “Data in and of itself is worthless; it’s what you do with it.”
It’s the nitty-gritty data that makes the data collection all that more impressive. Consider your smartphone. As Stinneford explained, “Every phone emits a unique ping every couple of seconds, so we can see trip origi- nation—where the pings came from.”
That opens up a range of pos- sibilities. “When a guest leaves an urban hotel, we can track how far away they go,” Stinneford said.
Buxton’s data also can be used to track competitor brands and hotels. “We can geofence a
specific hotel’s parking lot and see where those pings go after a stay,” Stinneford said.
How, then, does the data become actionable? As Jacobs described it, if they identify a yogi or someone into health, “we know they will resonate with an Element or Westin, so we target them,” he said. Westin and Ele- ment are positioned as health- and wellness-conscious brands.
TRIBAL TRAVELERS To further predict development trends, Jacobs refers to six types of travelers or tribes: simplicity searchers, those who value ease and transparency travel over everything else; cultural purists, those who use travel to immerse themselves in an unfamiliar cul- ture; social capital seekers, those whose travel choices are shaped by social reward; reward hunt- ers, those who seek indulgent or luxurious must-have experi- ences; obligation meeters, those who travel by the need to meet a bounded objective; and ethical travelers, those who allow their conscience to be their guide when organizing travel.
Jacobs said Marriott aligns its brands to those “traveling tribes,” which enables “us to see where they are traveling, where they shop, where they eat, how far they live from an airport.”
“Any hotel brand out there wants to maximize its footprint,” Hall said. “What are the total markets of opportunities?”
With 30 brands, Jacobs said that one of his biggest tasks now is dealing with impact issues and territorial disputes, so-called AOPs, or areas of protection. Before the Starwood acquisition, there was no issue with, say, a Westin next to a Marriott, a Courtyard next to a Four Points. “We have to drive thoughtful development,” Jacobs said.
Hotels have the potential to market to and cultivate consum- ers beyond those staying with them; those who live in the local community, or what Stinneford refers to as “people in the trade area.” “How do I use consumer analytics to understand who the best potential patrons are?” he said. “How do I market to them and create concepts that are pleasing both to guests and people in that area?”
Marriott is all ears. HM
DATA DRIVEN
Marriott bets on predictive analytics for brand growth
March 2018 | HOTELMANAGEMENT.NET10 NEWS
1 Best Western’s new SureStay Hotel Group brand opened a new property in Lexington, Ky. The 104- room hotel has one suite, and the property includes an outdoor pool and hot tub and a business center. It’s located near the Kentucky Horse Park.
2 Pod Hotels opened its flagship property, the Pod Times Square, in New York City. BD Hotels owns the hotel, which is the fifth asset in the Pod Hotels Collection and the brand’s third in New York City. The hotel is located on the corner of 42nd Street and 9th Avenue, and offers 655 rooms, each roughly 115 square feet in size.
3 RLH Corporation’s Signature hotel brand signed its first hotel since the concept was unveiled in 2017. The Signature San Francisco will be located in San Francisco’s SOMA district, and is being repositioned as a 34- room boutique hotel.
4 The 96-room Tryp by Wyndham Miami Bay Harbor officially opened. Wyndham Hotel Group Management operates the hotel, which is the fifth Tryp to open in North America.
5 HRI Lodging and Hyatt Hotels Corporation teamed up to add the Holston House in downtown Nashville to Hyatt’s Unbound Collection. The 1920s-era, 191- room James Robertson Hotel was converted to the Unbound Collection following a redesign from New York designers Stonehill Taylor.
NEWS BRIEFS5
Marriott International uses consumer data to predict where to add new hotels geographically.
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