Industry Hotel Number of locations 505 hotels | Founder S. Edward Marriott Area served Global | |
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Founded 1957; 60 years ago (1957) Headquarters Bethesda, Maryland, United States | ||
Marriott Hotels & Resorts is Marriott International's flagship brand of full-service hotels and resorts. The company, based in Washington D.C., is repeatedly included on the Forbes Best Companies to Work for list, and was voted the fourth best company to work for in the UK by The Times in 2009.
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As of January 2017, there were 552 hotels and resorts operating under the brand. The loyalty program is called Marriott Rewards.
History and current operation
The Marriott chain began with two motels in the 1950s. The first opened as a Quality Inn airport motel near Washington D.C. and another motel nearby, the Twin Bridges, a few years later. With the opening of the second motel, Marriott was born as a brand name. The Twin Bridges motel is still operating, but as a full-service hotel. The Twin Bridges property was demolished in 1990, but the Key Bridge property still operates.
In 1967, Marriott opened its first resort hotel, Camelback Inn, in Arizona, USA. Marriott Hotels & Resorts expanded outside of the United States for the first time in 1969 with the opening of the Marriott in Acapulco, Mexico.
By 1975, Marriott Hotels & Resorts had expanded to Europe, with the Amsterdam Marriott hotel opening in 1975.
In these first several decades, Marriott International owned and managed many of the hotels within its portfolio. In 1993, the company decided to spin off the real estate ownership operations as a new company, Host Marriott, while retaining hotel management services under the Marriott International company name.
By 1999, there were over 360 Marriott Hotels & Resorts in 47 countries, and in 2012 Marriott Hotels & Resorts celebrated the opening of the 500th Marriott Hotels & Resorts property, the Pune Marriott Hotel & Convention Centre, in Pune, India.
Location of international properties
In September 2005, Marriott Hotels & Resorts unveiled its first new room designs in ten years. Dubbed mSpot, the new rooms feature clean lines and updated technology.