On the latest episode of "Next Gen in Lodging," co-host Omari Head speaks with Gabrielle Johnson, manager of development planning and feasibility at Marriott International, about her career path and how Marriott is handling the current economic headwinds.
Johnson said development trend patterns shifted in the immediate aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"We're seeing a lot more condo hotels. We're seeing a lot more conversions versus new builds," she said.
These conversions are happening in a number of different ways, such as office to hotel or adaptive reuses for historical buildings, she said. The proliferation of soft brands has allowed owners to decide whether they would like to brand up or down on a conversion.
"There are many brands that will accept what you have and have a limited scope for a property improvement plan," she said. "You may want to convert to a hard brand, so that is going to require the investment as well as ensuring that your property meets the standards for that brand."
Another change she noted has been the escalation of turning dormant spaces around a hotel into revenue-generating areas. For example, hotels have converted pools into meeting rooms or underused food-and-beverage outlets into ones that can be activated throughout the day with different options.
Nearly every department is experimenting with how to incorporate artificial intelligence to improve efficiencies, and feasibility is no different. Johnson said her department is currently using it as a tool to present information rather than a tool to develop ideas.
"We collect information from a lot of different sources, whether that be market information, hotel performance information. One opportunity could be to streamline that process because it can be time consuming to go to websites for 10 different hotels and collaborate on what each hotels' resort fee is to decide what your resort fee should be, or what comparable amenities are. So there's opportunity," she said.
For more from Marriott's Gabrielle Johnson, listen to the embedded podcast above.
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