Read Bill Marriott's Letter to More Than 8,000 Top Customers Urging Continued Support for Travel.

J. Willard Marriott, Jr.
Chairman of the Board
and Chief Executive Officer

Dear Valued Customer: During challenging times, it’s important to review your business practices and thank the people who helped you succeed. That’s why I’m writing you today—to thank you for your continued loyalty to the Marriott family of brands and our 150,000 associates worldwide.

We understand that businesses have to make difficult decisions about business travel and holding larger meetings, events, and incentive trips. At Marriott, we’re making those same decisions ourselves. While we’ve postponed or scaled back certain events, we’ve also invested in meetings that we know grow our corporate culture, enhance our sales profitability, and allow us to emerge from this downturn stronger than our competition. And it turns out, the Kellogg Business School agrees. In a recent study, 82% of executives surveyed believe that business travel is important to achieving their business results and 72% find that increasing travel while others are cutting back gives them an advantage over their competitors.

The travel industry—particularly the sector of the industry that facilitates business meetings, events, and incentive travel—has recently been under assault. A handful of bad decisions by TARP recipients gave Washington politicians the impetus to portray business travel and events as excessive and unnecessary. Our industry has been fighting back by launching the Meetings Mean Business campaign, and I’ve written an op-ed, done media interviews, and personally met with many Senators, Governors, and the President to explain the unintended consequences of the rhetoric. I believed it was important to raise awareness about the real victims of declining travel—the housekeepers, taxi drivers, bellman, and banquet servers who could lose their jobs.

Following our recent meeting with President Obama, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said, “The President believes it’s important to have a strong tourism industry and that we shouldn’t retrench. He would encourage people to travel.”
At Marriott, we’ve launched a new promotion called “Meetings Matter” which can help our customers hold their events by offering unprecedented incentives for group bookings. We’d be happy to host your next meeting or event.
Our associates join me in appreciating committed customers like you. So thank you for doing business with us and keep doing what you do best!
Warm regards,

J.W. Marriott, Jr.