MARRIOTT’S HOTEL EXCELLENCE! PROGRAM FLOURISHES WITH OVER 41,000 GRADUATES

Marriott International, Inc. (NYSE: MAR) announced that its Hotel Excellence! program, a free-of-charge travel agent education program, now has over 41,000 graduates in 100 countries.

“This program has been successful beyond our expectations,” said Bruce Wolff, senior vice president, distribution sales and marketing. “We continue to receive very positive feedback from the travel agents who have completed the program. Their rating of Hotel Excellence! continues to be a nine on a 10-point scale.”

All of the major travel management companies and consortia as well as many regional travel agencies and travel agent associations, including ICTA and ARTA are actively participating in Hotel Excellence!. As a result, Marriott’s sales from travel agencies are rising faster than other sales categories. While all travel agency categories’ sales are increasing, Preferred Travel Agencies, those with a Hotel Excellent! graduate and who agree to give Marriott equal selling opportunity, are accelerating at a faster pace, and now make up over 80 percent of Marriott’s total travel agency sales.

The Preferred Travel Agency program has benefits for travel agents, who tell us that in addition to increasing overall hotel sales, Hotel Excellence! enhances client and employee loyalty. Agents are more educated when selling hotels and know what questions to ask, which leads to better client satisfaction as well as more confident travel agents. In addition, Hotel Excellence! supports travel agent goals to add to their knowledge and expertise of non-airline products.
“We continue to reinvest all of the money from the Preferred Travel Agency program and are working toward our goal of 100 percent participation of all travel agencies,” said Mr. Wolff.

The majority of the funds created by the program continue to go towards supporting the mult-million dollar Hotel Excellence! program, including distribution, production and marketing on worldwide basis, such as creating customized workbooks available in 10 languages and on the Internet.

The funds are also being reinvested into:
- Retail travel agency and mega-agency training programs.
- Interactive training for agents.
- Trade advertising to support Hotel Excellence!
- Development of educational programs.


The Preferred Travel Agency program is the first two-tier program in the industry. The first tier provides a 10 percent commission for travel agencies that elect to become a Marriott “Preferred Travel Agency.”

The second tier is for any travel agency who elects not to become a “Preferred Travel Agency.” These travel agencies earn an eight percent commission when they book any commissionable Marriott International rate.

Marriott International supports the travel agent community with a variety of pro-travel agency programs, including a double commission guarantee if agents are not paid within two weeks after their client has checked out, payments that are 99.9 percent accurate, no travel agent bypass via lower rates on the Internet, the highest-rated travel agent services help desk in the industry, and no charge for commission payments when paid directly.