Starwood’s Hospitality Legacy After the Marriott Merger
Photo Credit: The exterior of the W Istanbul. On Sept. 23, Marriott's acquisition of Starwood Hotels & Resorts will close, signaling the end of the company and its new beginning as a part of the Marriott family. Starwood Hotels & Resorts
Skift Take
Starwood Hotels & Resorts as we know it may be going away now that it'll be owned by Marriott International, but its history of innovation has had a lasting impact on the hospitality industry as a whole.
When Starwood first appeared in the 1990s, it was unlike any other lodging company out there. It wasn't a storied family brand like Hilton or Marriott. Instead, it was headed by a 31-year-old dealmaker named Barry Sternlicht, someone whom Bill Marriott once called "a kid with a backpack."
Funny how, 18 years later, things have changed so much. Today, Marriott is spending roughly $12 billion to buy the company started by that kid with a backpack.
The CEO of Marriott, the former CEO of Starwood, and More Are Speaking at Skift Global Forum 2016. Join Us.
Starwood's difference, its unique perspective as an upstart and outsider, if you will, has had a profound impact on the company's history. Because it was new, because it was the startup of its day, it needed to prove itself. It needed to constantly innovate. It needed to take risks.
Some of those risks paid off handsomely: the creation of W hotels. The Heavenly Bed. The SPG loyalty program, for example. So many of the things that have become standards of hospitality today — from all-white beds and branded boutique hotels to immensely popular hotel loyalty programs — they all got their start at Starwood.
But sometimes those risks, didn't pay off. Ultimately, what led to the demise of the company was the fact that, as innovative and forward-thinking as it was in so many ways, its board and shareholders argued it wasn't paying close enough attention to its pipeline and to its short-term financial objectives. That led to the departure of CEO Frits van Paasschen in 2015, and for the board to hang up a "for sale" sign.
And although the company name may disappear now that Marriott has successfully bought Starwood, its legacy lives on in so many ways. Skift spoke with industry analysts and experts, as well as former and current Starwood employees, for their memories of Starwood, and what they hope Marriott will preserve of the company going forward.
A REIT TrendsetterStarwood Hotels as we know it today was borne out of Starwood Capital Partners, a Chicago-based real estate company headed by Sternlicht in 1991. In 1995, it acquired Hotel Investors Trust and Hotel Investors Corporation, a "paired-share REIT" (real estate investment trust) that allowed Starwood to buy up a slew of properties: more than 60 by 1996. It eventually became Starwood Lodging in 1996 and in 1999, it changed from a REIT to a
