The buck stops here, right?
That's an idiom we've always heard in the context that the person or entity at the head of an organization takes the blame, takes the responsibility, takes the heat. That person takes it on the nose, whether or not they started the fight in the first place.
Marriott International is feeling that right now, from a PR perspective. When the news about aparthotel Sonder Holdings' default broke in early November, the mass-market news headlines all mentioned "Marriott" right alongside phrases like "leaves guests stranded mid-stay" and "evicts guests overnight."
Ouch.
Friends asked me, "did you see what Marriott did to those guests?" and "what is going on with Marriott, kicking people out?"
The articles all cited guests saying things like, "I'll never stay in a Marriott again."
Double ouch.
Our senior reporter and Marriott beat reporter Bryan Wroten has been covering this story from top to bottom and it's pretty clear Sonder had significant financial and operating issues from the start. As the full story emerges of how and why the puzzle pieces of this partnership fit together, a lot of people ask why it happened in the first place. Weren't there red flags that should have turned Marriott off from the deal?
Bryan continues to cover this story and we'll learn more in coming months. It's no surprise that public hotel companies have immense pressure on them for growth, and it's also no surprise that the Sonder agreement represented a very small part of Marriott's overall portfolio.
But the buck still stops with Marriott. And a very simple takeaway is that in a situation like this, the general consumer doesn't know or care that Sonder might have been the poorly behaving party from the start, that Marriott doesn't own the buildings, that this was a licensing agreement not an owned brand, etc.
As hotel industry professionals, we all know how to get deeper into the story, how to ask the questions that will reveal parties at fault and lessons learned. But your guests don't, necessarily. Guests don't need to know the complexities of franchising and licensing agreements between brands and parent companies, not to mention owners and third-party management companies. They see "Marriott" in a booking URL and that hotel is a Marriott, full stop.
So yes, the buck stops with Marriott, but I think Marriott will manage. There's been no drop in stock price since this happened, and prices have in fact gone up.
Stay with our reporting as we continue to follow the story.
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