Ecological Strategies of Marriott Hotel - Research Paper Example

Ecological Strategies – Marriott Hotel Ecological Strategies – Marriott Hotel Introduction Marriott Hotels, based in U.S.A, are one of the largest Hotel chains operating successfully throughout the world, also voted as one of the top companies to work for as an employee. Marriott Hotels are the major flagship brand of Marriott International, operating globally. Objectives Objective 1: Review To see what Marriott Hotels are doing for conservation of Environment right now.  Objective 2: To see what Marriott is doing to promote Green practices and how much do they invest? Objective 3: A comparison of Marriott with its competitors in terms of implementation of Green Strategies. CLR The current status of Marriott’s ecological management plan, as per the annual report of 2010, is that they wish to provide a sustainable future for generations to come, by conserving water and ‘going green’. Going green is meant to create an environment that supports energy conservation in the form of green construction, conservation of rainforests, saving water and spending money on projects that help in sustainability of the environment. Recently, Marriott hotels have upgraded and replaced equipment to improve efficiency which was a successful idea as efficiency improved by over 22% in 2010. Marriott Hotels invested millions of dollars in a water conservation program which offered water treatment and process improvement within the company. Marriott also came up with a partnership based project that promoted energy and water conservation by making management systems of laundry more efficient using the most powerful and expensive equipment in order to make sure it doesn’t waste scarce energy sources. Marriott is also attempting to help expand recycling and food decomposition facilities all over the U.S.A. The purpose is to save scarce resources and use them wherever and whenever possible. Other than this, Marriott is also working on promoting sustainable tourism in collaboration with the World Travel and Tourism Council. Marriott is also providing training and development as well as guidance for research being conducted on sustainability. Marriott is also working with the Global Business Travel Association to work for a sustainable environment for the industry. Hence, the main concern for Marriott Hotels is to save energy, water, resources and carbon for which it has been undertaking many projects like these to help save the ecological environment (Marriott Sustainability Report, 2010; Enz, 2009; Snell & Bohlander, 2012). A very interesting concept introduced by Marriott Hotels recently was that of Green Buildings known as the Leeds ((Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) program which aimed at reducing wastage of resources by 25%. The outlook of these Hotels is also ‘Green”- The Green Hotel Prototype. In March 2010, Marriott Hotels participated in conservation of energy by celebrating earth hour. They did this by turning out all the light for an hour as a global support for saving energy. Besides this, Marriott identified that April would be known as The Environmental Awareness Month where guests would be informed and told about energy consumption, conservation and ways to do that such as by following environmentally friendly practices. In 2008, Marriott introduced new environmentally friendly products for their hotels. In the next two years, a “green meetings’ program was also started at Marriott Hotels and its main purpose was to promote the concept of reusing things and recycling them in order to save existing resources. They created interesting to see products such as decorations, flowers, notebooks and pens etc which were made from recycled material. It was a very encouraging attempt to promote this concept using recycling bins in the conference meetings to allow everyone to contribute in this global cause of sustainability and growth (Marriott Website; Jacobs, 1994; Aritz & Walker, 2011). Another contribution of Marriott to this cycle of global conservation of energy is to fund the Juma Reserve project in Brazil to save the forests. Marriott spent over two million dollars to sustain the rainforest by providing them electricity with the noble cause of being able to provide electricity in every home possible. In May, Marriott invested over 500 000 dollars to support a water saving program to ensure that people have access to fresh and pure water that is safe from contamination. The main aim was to improve the quality of water available in both urban and rural areas and to protect the endangered wildlife that lived in the water. This water conservation program in which Marriott invested was called “Nobility of Nature”. Other efforts that became part of this project were for instance providing grants to members of the Juma community who deserved it the most. Besides this, installation of a well was also done to provide clan and fresh water to the people living there who needed it (Reinhardt, 2000; Marriott Sustainability Report, 2010; Iansiti & Levein, 2004) It is apparent and clear from the above facts that Marriott Hotels have been making great efforts at sustainability of the environment all over the world in the most critical areas such as saving water, energy resources, rainforests, recycling material to avoid and reduce wastage by reusing scarce resources (Marriott Sustainability Report; Pride & Ferrell, 2012; Root & Visudtibhan, 1992). When comparing the efforts out in by Marriott Hotels with other competitors we see that they are also putting in similar efforts in order to fulfill their Corporate Social Responsibility as well as to attract those customers who are bothered about a Greener World in terms of ecological sustainability and environmental protection. When taking a look at Hilton Hotel’s ecological plan and objectives, their sustainability mission is to protect the world, redesign buildings to make sure they do not destroy the environment, to improve efficiency in working and management, to serve communities by involving members of their teams and to increase and enhance the experience of guests. Hilton has also been taking similar steps as Marriott for completing their corporate responsibility. Taking a look at Ritz Carlton tells us that their focus has been on the people of the community rather than the environment as a whole (Marriott Website; Hilton Website; Ritz Carlton Website). Research Methodology The first thing to be done is to see the current practices of Marriott Hotels as seen above. The next step should be trying to compare these efforts with other competitors and their level of involvement in Environmental conservation as seen above. Other than the things mentioned above, the Marriott Hotel Board can create a separate committee that deals with projects specific to the Corporate Social Responsibility sector. Marriott should position itself as a Green Hotel ambassador since it is working in this dimension more than any of its competitors. A primary research should be conducted from the consumers as well as competitors consumers to see if they would prefer Marriott over others because of excessive work in Corporate Social Responsibility. A relationship needs to be established to see whether an increase in Environment friendly activities and promoting a green environment helps in attracting more customers or not. For this primary research to be conducted, the target audience needs to be defined first which will be the consumers of Marriott as well as its competitors. Then they need to be interviewed about their priorities while selecting a Hotel, and see whether participation in Eco friendly activities is part of it. Then the data needs to be analyzed in order to make sure that it is worth the effort to attract customers on the bass of Corporate Social Responsibility. If the answer turns out to be yes, then Marriott Hotels should think about ways of channelizing their Green Environment activities. It would also be a good idea to market itself as a global friendly Hotel chain that works for the betterment of the environment. It should change its plan of action of marketing to make sure it attracts the right customers towards itself. Other than this, it should work on changing its segmentation strategy via building a detailed customer database that includes their information gathered from the primary research. A Global Development department should be made and should be allotted a separate budget for carrying out its activities in a way that is both beneficial to the society as well as the environment and the users of the Hotels. This department will be responsible for using the allocated budget in a manner which works on research and development to see which areas require the most improvement according to the circumstances. It could be allocated to improvements in different sectors like water conservation or saving energy to avoid future energy crisis, or it could be in the form of giving aid and grants to areas such as people who are not getting a clean living environment. It could also be sued to increase efficiency in operations and reducing consumption of energy by making optimal usage of energy resources that are available (Griffin, 2007; Marriott Website). References Aritz, J., & Walker, R. (2011). Discourse perspectives on organizational communication. Lanham, Md: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. Enz, C. A. (2009). Hospitality Strategic Management: Concepts and Cases. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. Griffin, R. W. (2007). Principles of management. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Co. Hilton Hotels Website. (2012). Available at: www.hiltonworldwide.com. Accessed Date: April 16th 2012 Iansiti, M. & Levein, R. (2004). “Strategy as Ecology”. Harvard Business Review, Retrieved from: Jacobs, R. W. (1994). Real time strategic change: How to involve an entire organization in fast and far-reaching change. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Marriott Website. (2012). Available at: www.Marriott.com Accessed: April 16th 2012. Marriott International Sustainability Report. (2010). Available at: http://www.marriott.com/Multimedia/PDF/CorporateResponsibility/Marriott_Sustainabil ty_Report_Update_2010.pdf. Accessed Date: April 16th 2012. Pride, W. M., & Ferrell, O. C. (2012). Marketing. Mason, Ohio: South-Western Cengage Learning. Reinhardt, F. L. (2000). Down to earth: Applying business principles to environmental management. Boston, Mass: Harvard Business School Press. Ritz Carlton Website. (2012). Available at: www.ritzcarlton.com Accessed: April 16th 2012 Root, F. R., & Visudtibhan, K. (1992). International strategic management: Challenges and opportunities. Washington: Taylor & Francis.   Snell, S., & Bohlander, G. W. (2012). Managing human resources. Mason, Ohio: South Western. Read More