Marriott to ease travelling
Jan 07, 2008
MARRIOTT International is a worldwide hospitality company. <b>Brenda Salira</b>, the sales director in east, central and southern Africa, talked to <b>James Odomel</b> about the company’s relevance to the regular traveller.
MARRIOTT International is a worldwide hospitality company. Brenda Salira, the sales director in east, central and southern Africa, talked to James Odomel about the company’s relevance to the regular traveller.
QUESTION: What does the company do?
ANSWER: Marriott International, Inc. is a leading worldwide hospitality company with over 3,000 lodging properties, over 800,000 rooms, over 8,000 vacation villas in the US and 68 other countries and territories. The company’s headquarters are in Washington, D.C. It has about 151,000 associates and is in its 80th year of operation.
The management and sales organisation is distributed into regions, with that for Middle East and Africa based in Dubai.
Marriott is ranked as the lodging industry’s most admired company and one of the best places to work.
What is your brand portfolio?
It includes 13 hotel chains, which include full-service luxury hotels, five-star establishments, extended stay inns, upper-moderate all suites, moderate four-star hotels, vacation clubs, golf hotels and up-scale serviced and furnished apartments.
A choice of any of these hotels will cater to the needs of the business, leisure, long-term or budget traveller. The average price range for all our brands is between $70 and $300, depending on one’s segment. For more information visit http://www.marriott.com/corporateinfo/glance.mi
How relevant is it to the Ugandan market?
The current situation in the outbound travel and hospitality trade in the country is that though the airline and flight sector is quite mastered, we are still lagging behind in the area of securing standard accommodation abroad. Due to the still burgeoning era of the credit card in Uganda, travellers are limited to monopolised packages from tour operators, which require that you either take all the services offered or none at all, cutting down on their freedom in their travel arrangements.
Others rely on their counterparts overseas to book hotels, which is another tedious and long process. And then there are travellers who rely on the chance of finding cheap hotels on arrival abroad of between $20 and $40 per night for a double. It is unfortunate that most of the time these searches are not successful.
Do you have any offices in East Africa?
Marriott has a representative’s office on Plot 4, Kimathi Avenue called Carlson Wagonlit. We have embarked on intensive training with the local travel agencies to enable them recommend the right hotels to their clients, who will then be able to instantly book, confirm and pay for their accommodation.
We are also introducing our online payment system, which is being availed to the top travel management firms of Uganda. We hope to counter the credit card problem and travellers will be able to pay cash here and receive instant confirmation and receipts from our hotels, even before departure.
Our variety in quality and numbers of properties in major world cities, and even less prominent ones, range from five 10 hotels per city, which gives the traveller the privilege of choice according to budget and location.
Do you have a corporate policy programme?
Yes. We have offers for international corporate companies at negotiated rates for their business travel. Some of our accounts which are operational in Uganda include; Unilever, Shell, Chevron/Total, Barclays, Standard Chartered, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte, AIG, British American Tobacco, Citigroup, Coca-Cola, Ernst&Young, Exxon Mobil and FedEx. We are also looking at developing local and regional accounts that have considerable travel overseas, or to any destination where we have a property.
QUESTION: What does the company do?
ANSWER: Marriott International, Inc. is a leading worldwide hospitality company with over 3,000 lodging properties, over 800,000 rooms, over 8,000 vacation villas in the US and 68 other countries and territories. The company’s headquarters are in Washington, D.C. It has about 151,000 associates and is in its 80th year of operation.
The management and sales organisation is distributed into regions, with that for Middle East and Africa based in Dubai.
Marriott is ranked as the lodging industry’s most admired company and one of the best places to work.
What is your brand portfolio?
It includes 13 hotel chains, which include full-service luxury hotels, five-star establishments, extended stay inns, upper-moderate all suites, moderate four-star hotels, vacation clubs, golf hotels and up-scale serviced and furnished apartments.
A choice of any of these hotels will cater to the needs of the business, leisure, long-term or budget traveller. The average price range for all our brands is between $70 and $300, depending on one’s segment. For more information visit http://www.marriott.com/corporateinfo/glance.mi
How relevant is it to the Ugandan market?
The current situation in the outbound travel and hospitality trade in the country is that though the airline and flight sector is quite mastered, we are still lagging behind in the area of securing standard accommodation abroad. Due to the still burgeoning era of the credit card in Uganda, travellers are limited to monopolised packages from tour operators, which require that you either take all the services offered or none at all, cutting down on their freedom in their travel arrangements.
Others rely on their counterparts overseas to book hotels, which is another tedious and long process. And then there are travellers who rely on the chance of finding cheap hotels on arrival abroad of between $20 and $40 per night for a double. It is unfortunate that most of the time these searches are not successful.
Do you have any offices in East Africa?
Marriott has a representative’s office on Plot 4, Kimathi Avenue called Carlson Wagonlit. We have embarked on intensive training with the local travel agencies to enable them recommend the right hotels to their clients, who will then be able to instantly book, confirm and pay for their accommodation.
We are also introducing our online payment system, which is being availed to the top travel management firms of Uganda. We hope to counter the credit card problem and travellers will be able to pay cash here and receive instant confirmation and receipts from our hotels, even before departure.
Our variety in quality and numbers of properties in major world cities, and even less prominent ones, range from five 10 hotels per city, which gives the traveller the privilege of choice according to budget and location.
Do you have a corporate policy programme?
Yes. We have offers for international corporate companies at negotiated rates for their business travel. Some of our accounts which are operational in Uganda include; Unilever, Shell, Chevron/Total, Barclays, Standard Chartered, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte, AIG, British American Tobacco, Citigroup, Coca-Cola, Ernst&Young, Exxon Mobil and FedEx. We are also looking at developing local and regional accounts that have considerable travel overseas, or to any destination where we have a property.