Boardroom report

Boardroom Report 1

Boardroom Report 5

University of west London

The London Geller College of Hospitality and Tourism

MA Luxury Hospitality Management

TH70054E- Brand Reputation Management

Assignment-Boardroom Report

Student ID no.-21469145

Executive Summary

The hotel, catering and tourism industry remains one of the key sectors in the global economy. The industry has been considered to be the fastest-growing, which in analytics, it remains to be more than one-third of the total global services trade. The industry has massively achieved benefits on the overall process of globalization and constant falling of relative costs of travel. Statistically, in the 1950s, it was notable that the travel industry made a record of 25 million international tourists, while between the 1950s and 2008, there were 684 million traders recorded. One of the most recognized hotels, catering, and tourism industry is Marriott International Brand. Basically, Marriott International Brand is one of the leading global hospitality companies with over 2,200 branches in 60 countries. In American brand, Marriott has 30 brands, 7484 properties in 131 countries. With a unique approach in terms of business and brands, Marriott International offers one of the broadest portfolios of the hospitality industry in the world. Each of the world brands comprises a leader who has extensive knowledge in customer needs and preference, profit margin and hospitality brands. On a collective note, Marriott International’s unique competitive strength and advantages of these forms of brands work together to establish a powerful network, which makes it possible to leverage economies of scale and capitalization on profitable business opportunities. The Marriott International brand has unified networks that strengthen the power of the company. The overall resulting growth potential and the overall reliability process of the growth remains to be so high. The world distribution process makes it possible for the organization to have a strong presence across the world, and the key focus is customer production. This paper presents a boardroom report of a crisis that happened in Marriott International.

Contents

Introduction……………………………………………………………………………4

The Underperformed Reputation Drivers and Impact on Stakeholders…….5

· Leadership and Governance …………………………………………………5

· Corporate Social Responsibility and Services………………………………7

· Impact on Stakeholders……………………………………………………….8 

The Current Management Practice and Alternative Perspectives……………9

Recommendations for alterations to current management practices……….10

Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...11

References………………………………………………………………………………12

Introduction

The organizational brand is defined as a cluster of emotional and rational values that makes it possible for the stakeholders to make recognition of a promise regarding a unique and welcoming experience. In a situation where the brand presents a strong heritage, then it is always better to get prepared for the series of uncertain environment and to always interact with the diverse customers at symbolic and emotional levels. In the case of Marriott International Brand, tourist perceived brand and image of the destination, including key issues of risk and safety, play essential roles when it comes to making the decision whether or not to visit a particular destination. Whenever a crises strike a particular destination, there is a need for tourists' organizations to collaborate and work together towards image and brand restoration. The Marriott Hotel's following the case of hurricane evacuation process for the guest, where more than 30 guests were left behind, presented the image of the industry in the negative limelight (Audra, 2020). This study is basically directed to the Marriott International brand following the unfortunate incident of the hurricane where guests were saved while more others were left behind. To work on this report, the underperformed reputation drivers will highly be established and assessed. Thereafter, the overall correlation between Marriott International Brand reputation and social will be discussed. Secondly, this work will investigate what Marriott International need to do to restore and manage its reputation following the risk assessment. Lastly, the overall recommendations for Marriott International Brand to strengthen their renewed brand reputation and avoid any issues regarding the challenges will be presented. 

The Underperformed Reputation Drivers and Impact on Stakeholders

Basically, the overall reputation of an organization is basically built based on intangible assets that have overall consequences on brand competitive advantage and performance. In this case, the idea of measuring the organizational brand such as Marriott International seems to be challenging (Madeline, 2017). Even though RepTrack® which is a global survey that has more than 100,000 participants reveals that the overall reputation is basically impacted by what an organization stand for as opposed to what they sell, this report found that RepTrack® is an important tool. This is because, according to the Reputation Institute, a focus is paid on how the stakeholders perceive companies and how such varying perceptions affect the overall purchasing behavior of an organization. RepTrack® which is basically established on a simple emotion-based measure of corporate reputation, the unique technique help in measuring the overall reputation of the corporation. In the case of Marriott International Hotel, the hotel underperformed on three key areas: Leadership and Governance; Cooperate Social Responsibility and Services, and impact on stakeholders. 

Leadership and Governance 

Marriott International, which faced one of the most devastations from Hurricane Irma that get stranded more than 600 people stranded on Saint Thomas, is directly associated with the lack of proper leadership and governance. While Marriott International extensively coordinated with the local authorities to initiate the rescuing mission, it is remembered that only the guests were rescued, leaving others behind (Gary, 2017). The leadership and governance were extensively required with a practical rescuing process that works perfectly in any of the required moment and saves lives. 

Marriott International has underperformed for two key reasons. First, there were challenges when it comes to the policy on rescuing process whenever challenges such as hurricanes occur. On Equality Act (2010), an organization is not allowed to discriminate against people based on their social positions or colour. As such, by rescuing only guests and leaving others, the Marriott International leadership and governance failed the Equality Act. The concept of equality as used in this case is important. It means ensuring that individuals in an organization are not treated differently or discriminated against because of their certain characteristics. When considering the case of the people who were seeking urgent help as a result of the hurricane, the leadership and management portrayed inequality when treating who should be treated first. This made such people appear to be extensively different from others in a particular society, and that remained to be the unjust action against them. As such, it is important for the organization to embrace differences and to put the affairs of the people first. There should be a culture of inclusion in the overall way of doing the business. Marriott International ought to have core strengths which lie in the ability to support equity, diversity and inclusion through the creation of opportunities for owners, guests, associates, suppliers and franchisees. 

Secondly, there were challenges in setting priorities in Marriott International. The inability of rescuing all the people following the emergence of hurricanes means that there were misplaced priorities in the leadership. Irrespective of the short term challenges faced by the hospitality industries, the CEO lacked a proper plan of occurrence of such challenge and how to respond it swiftly so as to save the lives of all the people in the hotel. As such, stakeholder engagement was essential when it comes to developing the sustainable, long-term performance of addressing natural disasters such as hurricanes (Cleve, 2017). There was a failure in the overall amount of time invested in developing ideas and building consensus, which revolves around direction and ideas before the overall execution of the emergence of surprises that may harm the image of the organization. Also, it was notable that there was the making of decision with incomplete data on disaster response. Based on the action of rescuing guests only, Marriott International seems to have lacked the necessary data to complete such a mission successfully. The data is important, which should always be available in real-time and help the top management in making prompt decision whenever the disaster occurs.

One of the challenges noted among Marriott International CEO is becoming comfortable in making decisions with less than complete information. Above all, settings of the right culture in Marriott International are necessary. Whenever the culture of inclusion is initiated, this shapes the overall values and purpose of running an organization; it basically makes it possible for an organization to deliver on their brand promise. There was lacking need to treating everybody at all levels in Marriott International is an equal manner, and that explains why the image of the organization was compromised (Cody, 2017). Generally, shaping the overall values of Marriott International will not be a question of making a show, but there is an urgent need of believing it and thinking of consistent improvement. 

While leadership and governance are closely related, they represent a key driver of Marriott International underperformance during the hurricane incident that took place. Ideally, it is notable that the overall behavior of Marriott International during and after the incident that took place can be considered to be unfair unethical and lack of good morals among the hotel's top management. By saving only the guests and leaving over 600 workers, it appears that this was initiated on the basis of the hotel policies, which were extensively not fully well thought by the management. For instance, according to a professional storm chaser who was contracted on the rescue mission, he indicated that together with the team, they felt hopeless. His exit strategy essentially evaporated during the situation where the island's airport got closed (Gary, 2017). The rescue mission was so challenging because Marriott International failed to lay down the priorities of dealing with the problem. One of the Marriott International officials was recorded stating that they "didn't want the liability", meaning that the overall focus was for the guests while others were not the priority. One of the residents who were observing the situation helplessly criticized the management for failing to equalize all the people. She indicated that there were more than 600 sears, and Marriott International had filled it with only 300 Marriott guests. Over 35 people were left waiting, and they 'can't get the large boat that will basically hold at least 200 to 300 more people.'

Corporate Social Responsibility and Services

Based on the incident that took the place of saving only the guests and leaving the rest of the community, it is evident that Marriott International failed in corporate social responsibility and proper services. Ideally, the issues of CSR should always be on the agenda of organizations and rethinking hospitality as the sustainable practice is increasingly becoming a matter of concern. CSR implies that the organization is implementing socially responsible practices into the given sect of operations and is basically responsible for series of actions that are related to society. The approach is bottom-line where the key interest is people (community), planet (environment) and ethics. The idea of CSR is to shed light on pertinent issues, more so in the local community through which it operates, environmental concerns, energy consumption and technology use. 

Marriott International has negative social implications on its operations. When considering the case of the people who were seeking urgent help as a result of the hurricane, the leadership and management portrayed inequality when treating who should be treated first. This made such people appear to be extensively different from others in a particular society, and that remained to be the unjust action against them. As such, it is important for the organization to embrace differences and to put the affairs of the people first. There should be a culture of inclusion in the overall way of doing the business.

Marriott International failed to comply with the principles of CSR initiatives which lead to the improvement of service quality. Under the ideal situation, the context of responsible social activity contributes to the positive impact on customer satisfaction, and this will subsequently lead to loyalty and retention. As such, Marriott International brand name was compromised following the incidence of discriminating people during the evacuation process (Madeline, 2017). The organization also did not comply with the CSR ethical issues through the failure to abide by the moral and ethical standards among the stakeholders on board with strategy and practices. On the social aspects, Marriott International had negative effects on the issues of values among many more other social aspects of the community in which it operates. This tainted the positive brand image and stirred a lot of debate in the mainstream media on the magnitude of challenges. There was a failure in the overall amount of time invested in developing ideas and building consensus, which revolves around direction and ideas before the overall execution of the emergence of surprises that may harm the image of the organization. Also, it was notable that there was the making of decision with incomplete data on disaster response. Based on the action of rescuing guests only, Marriott International seems to have lacked the necessary data to complete such a mission successfully. Therefore, Marriott International need to put more efforts into corporate social responsibility, and in the process, the organization will be taken to the next successful level. 

Impact on Stakeholders 

The ideal communications channels are not always under the brand's control, as noticed in the case of Marriott International. However, the communication channels enable interactions with the brand, which is one of the important phenomena among organizations. The channels play an essential role in helping the customer join the process of corporation evacuation. The overall contexts of the corporate reputations are usually linked to a series of behaviors such as the intent of expounding on positive consumer and having a positive image of the organization. In most cases, consumers usually rely on social media to obtain critical information about a particular brand (Audra, 2020). Once Marriott International was accused of being unfair to the community during the hurricane, the organization reputation was compromised. The process attracted negative reactions to the members of the public, and such frustrations were taken to social media where the larger customer base will get to know what exactly transpired. The wide-scale reach of social media leads to Marriott International's stakeholders pulling out their invested resources following the negative limelight. These attracted the management to take series of initiatives to address the challenges. 

The Current Management Practice and Alternative Perspectives

To present the solutions to Marriott International to restore brand reputation following the hurricane incident, which took place, there is a need of analyzing risk management strategy before coming up with actions to mitigate such situation from happening again. 

Marriott International made plunder when they reacted to the trends on social media following the unfortunate incident. This worsened the situation based on the reaction of the claim. While the reactive strategy can be a representation of how the organization can give out the information on a spontaneous reaction to the incident, it was not suitable to justify the unfortunate incident that was initiated by the top management (Micah, 2017). It is important to note that corporations usually have to engage in a systematic form of proactive communication to contain the risks that have occurred and correct the reputation's damage. There is, therefore, a need of choosing a communication channel such as Twitter strategically wisely (Cody, 2017). The context of the negative publicity of Marriott International comes out of five firm's position which includes confession, justification excuse, denial and no comment. The denial process was shown by the series of comments that were made. The 'no response' was done by the top management as they refused to give information to the journalists on what actually transpired. 

A luxury brand such as Marriott International is required to communicate to those individuals they are not targeting. As such, it is important to know that the brands should extensively be known by many people than the people who can afford the service being offered. As such, there is a need of being present in social media, which enables social media to be more visible to individuals who might not be aware of the existence of the service (Madeline, 2017). Brand awareness is massively and positively affected by the overall presence on social media such as Twitter which will act as the marketing tool of an organization.   

Recommendations for alterations to current management practices

  Marriott International management should always embrace differences and putting the affairs of the people first. There should be a culture of inclusion in the overall way of doing the business. Marriott International ought to have core strengths which lie in the ability to support equity, diversity and inclusion through the creation of opportunities for owners, guests, associates, suppliers and franchisees (Cody, 2017). Based on the incident that took the place of saving only the guests and leaving the rest of the community, it is evident that Marriott International failed in corporate social responsibility and proper services. Ideally, the issues of CSR should always be on the agenda of organizations and rethinking hospitality as the sustainable practice is increasingly becoming a matter of concern. CSR implies that the organization is implementing socially responsible practices into the given sect of operations and is basically responsible for series of actions that are related to society. There is a need of upholding and embracing the values of CSR. The communication process should emphasize to enable the swift clearing of air whenever there is a conflict between and its stakeholders. Lastly, Marriott International should develop unique competitive strength and advantages of brands to works together to establish a powerful network, which makes it possible for leverage of economies of scale and capitalization on profitable business opportunities.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this report has been written to identify the crisis that happened in Marriott International and identify strategies to be taken to address future crises. While many strategies have been taken by Marriott International to restore its image, it is necessary to note that more is still needed to be done. As recommended in this report, the focus of the organization should be the customer and corporate social responsibility. The idea of CSR should always be on the agenda of organizations, and rethinking hospitality as a sustainable practice is increasingly becoming a matter of concern. CSR implies that the organization is implementing socially responsible practices into the given sect of operations and is basically responsible for series of actions that are related to society. There is a need of upholding and embracing the values of CSR. Therefore, the top management should put more efforts into addressing the issues that might taint the image of the organization from occurring and protect the dignity of customers and the environment from which it operates. 

References List

1. Cleve R. Wootson Jr.(2017/09/12), Why a Marriott rescue ship was forced to leave strandedtourists behind https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/09/12/marriott-sent-a rescue-ship-to-the-caribbean-after-irma-and-left-non-guests-on-the-dock/ ;The Washington Post

2. Micah Solomon(2017/09/12), The Inside Story of Marriott's High-Seas Rescue After IrmaStranded 620 Hotel Guests On St. Thomas https://www.forbes.com/sites/micahsolomon/2017/09/12/the-inside-story-of-marriottshigh-seas-rescue-of-620-hotel-guests-stranded-by-irma-on-st-thomas/?sh=8cec551654a2 Forbes

3. Madeline Stone(2017/09/13), Marriott sent a boat to rescue guests trapped on St. Thomas, buthad to leave many other tourists stranded https://www.businessinsider.com/hurricane irma-marriott-rescues-guests-leaves-others-stranded-2017-9?r=US&IR=T; Insider

4. Gary Leff (2017/09/13), So What REALLY Happened When Marriott Left 35 People Behind onSt. Thomas? https://viewfromthewing.com/really-happened-marriott-left-35-peoplbehind-st-thomas/ ;View from the Wing

5. Cody Howard (2017/09/07) ;Facebook post, Us Virginia Island, https://www.facebook.com/cody.howard.796/posts/1482682588492260

6. Audra Diers-Lawson 2020, Crisis Communication, Abingdon ; Routledge