Marriott International has received the Digital 50 Award from IDG Enterprise—the leading enterprise technology media company composed of CIO, Computerworld, CSO, InfoWorld, ITworld and Network World. The Digital EDGE 50 award honored Marriott’s “Win the Stay” digital strategy, which is enabling the company to connect with next gen travelers on digital and mobile platforms throughout their travel journey.
“This award is recognition of the tremendous work by our teams to better serve the needs of millions of travelers worldwide,” said George Corbin, Senior Vice President of Digital, Marriott International. “Mobile is our fastest-growing customer channel and we leverage that growth to transform the guest experience, making service at critical travel moments easier, more personalized, and more relevant to our guests at every step in their journey.”
Today, Marriott offers guests a portfolio of mobile guest services through its dynamic app that features customized content for Marriott Rewards members when they are planning travel, getting ready to travel, the hotel stay and between stays. The company led the industry in rolling out mobile check-in, room ready alerts and mobile checkout three years ago. One year later, Marriott added Mobile Requests enabling guests to personalize their travel before, during and after their stays across more than 4,000 hotels worldwide. With Mobile Requests, guests can either choose from a drop-down menu of the most requested services or chat directly with hotel staff for special requests.
Other mobile features enable guests to use their smartphone as their room key and access their Netflix, Hulu, YouTube accounts and more on guest room televisions at select hotels. Coming soon, Marriott will add more personalized and informative content based on data and driven by beacons now installed at over 500 hotels. For example, members who typically workout while they travel would receive push notifications about the location, hours and services of the hotel fitness facility.
“The complexity and scale of the initiatives in the Digital Edge 50 show how quickly organizations are progressing to the next phase of digital transformation,” said Anne McCrory, Digital Edge program chair and Group VP, Customer Experience and Operations, IDG Enterprise Events. “They are taking advantage of new capabilities, such as AI and deep machine learning, to enhance their mobile and analytics practices worldwide. They are finding dramatic results from the cloud, and serving customers in faster and more elegant ways. Their adoption of agile, extreme programming and completely reworked business processes show how even the most traditional businesses can go big with digital with the right vision and leadership.”
The Digital Edge 50 Award is a recognized honor of digital innovation. Through digital technologies such as mobile, analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), virtual reality/augmented reality and cloud, award winners see business results that indicate a true “digital edge.” Selected by a panel of industry experts and business and technology executives, winning applications are driving greater customer engagement, higher sales conversions and new products, as well as revenue and profit growth. Entries were judged by a panel of executive peers, including past winners, who evaluated projects on complexity, scale, business outcomes and innovation. Award recipients were honored at IDG’s AGENDA 17 Conference on March 23, 2017.