Skift Take
So does everyone else in the hotel business these days. Hotel companies like Marriott certainly have the scale and financial backing to improve hotel dining, but do they have the passion or creativity to mimic the independent restaurants they're trying to imitate? And will diners be able to taste the difference?
Marriott International executives know what people have thought about its dining options for the past few years or, well, decades. Namely, that the food and bar options were likely consistent and convenient, but that's simply code for "boring" and "uninspired."
They are so aware of this commonly held conception of the hotel restaurant — a concept not solely limited to Marriott itself but to nearly every major hotel chain — that for the past few years, they've worked hard to try to transform the very idea of what a good, no, exceptional hotel dining outlet should be.
"I do think the perception of the company and where we are, from an F&B [food and beverage] standpoint is five years in the past," said Dave Grissen, Marriott International group president. "We want to catch up to everyone a bit to where we are and where we want to go."
Just a few days prior, Grissen stood before a crowd of more than 100 investment analysts at Marriott's biannual investor day presentation in New York City, talking specifically about the opportunity that the world's largest hotel company now has when it comes to its more than 10,000 restaurants and bars spread out among more than 6,900 hotels.
Dining is a big business for hotels, and Marriott wants its investors to know that.
In 2018, the restaurants and bars managed by Marriott worldwide generated some $12.9 billion in dining. Of its global portfolio, 127 of those restaurants generated more than $5 million in revenue each. There are 29 Michelin stars across the portfolio.
Laura E. Paugh, Marriott's senior vice president of investor relations, told Skift, anecdotally, that in her 39 years with Marriott, this was the first time in a long time that she could recall that an entire portion of the investor day presentation to the company's dining business.
But beyond just the revenue numbers or the accolades, Grissen and his colleagues at Marriott — as well as the larger hotel industry at large — know that dining has already become one of the most important facets of travel, and that it has the power to sustain a hotel as a neighborhood fixture, too, and well, keep the lights on.
And the relationship between both restaurant and hotel is symbiotic — the financial backing of a hotel operation can give
