End of an era: Bill Marriott stepping down as Marriott CEO

14 Dec, 2011 By: David Eisen

J.W. Marriott Jr., who was instrumental in turning Hot Shoppes into a 3,600-hotel empire, is stepping down as CEO of his family's namesake hotel company. The announcement ends a 39-year run for the Marriott chief better known as Bill. Arne Sorenson, currently Marriott's president and COO, will take the reins as the company's third-ever CEO in March. In doing so, he becomes the first non-Marriott to run the company. Bill Marriott will take the title of executive chairman.

"Bill Marriott is more than the grandfather of our industry," Fred Malek, the company's former hotels president and co-founder of an Annapolis hotel investment company, told The Washington Post. "He’s been the pacesetter we’ve all wanted to measure up to. Nobody will ever replace Bill Marriott as the maestro of this industry."

Marriott's father, J. Willard Marriott, originally founded the company, but it was his son who helped turn it into the hotel empire it is today, with its name spanning from Washington, D.C., all the way to China, and employing 129,000 people.

Many credit Marriott with, as Voice of America puts it, "pioneering the industry’s business model, based on the philosophy that if you take care of your customers, your customers will come back."

Now it is up to Sorenson to continue to deliver on that creed. In June, Hotel Management profiled the would-be CEO, as he detailed plans for Marriott's expansion in Europe. "Europe is nothing like these newly developing economies; it probably has among the lowest growth rates, but Marriott has an enormous opportunity there," said Sorenson. "Our share is relatively small. In Europe we probably have about 1 to 2 percent of the market."

Asia, particularly China, will also be a huge focus for Sorenson and Marriott. The Wall Street Journal reports that the hotel company is working on opening another 228 hotels in Asia. He'll also have to decide the further direction of Edition, Marriott's fledgling lifestyle brand that has already had its share of hiccups. As Hotel Management reported on in October, Marriott lost management of Waikiki Edition in bankruptcy proceedings. Marriott then announced it would bankroll Edition operations going forward.