SALES & MARKETING
Lisa Holladay drives the global brand marketing strategy for Marriott International ' s luxury brands , including Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co ., Ritz-Carlton Reserve , St . Regis Hotels & Resorts and Bulgari . HOTELS spoke with her about steps the company ’ s taking to take make luxury more accessible . HOTELS : What ’ s going on with Marriott ’ s upper luxury brands in terms of making a move towards casual luxury ? Lisa Holladay : Marriott has started this journey of making quite substantial changes in luxury . From major things like changing the brand identities , updating the logo and the color , to things that may seem smaller but actually have a huge impact , and that was around the grooming standards . H : What kind of changes ? LH : Facial hair was one . And earrings , nail polish color , hosiery . Previously , women were required to wear hosiery even if they were working in Palms Springs and it was 100 degrees outside . The way their hair was cut , how long their hair could be – it really encompassed everything from hair to nails to clothing to shoes . We want to appeal not only for younger guests , have a more relaxed feel , but also it ’ s super important for the talent we ’ re attracting , the future ladies and gentlemen that we want to come work at the brand . H : What ’ s hot and trending from a service and amenities perspective ? LH : We went through a small moment in time where there was almost a disconnect with the concierges because guests had so much information at their fingertips . What we see now is a complete swing the other way , that there ’ s so much information and they ’ re inundated with so much , they ’ re really looking for the individuals at the property to be the local experts .
For a while , I also felt like everything was so focused on what technology we ’ re bringing in and we see a swing in that , too . It ’ s not that customers don ’ t want it , but what we ’ ve found in luxury specifically is that ultimately technology doesn ’ t take the place of our staff . H : Fashion and lifestyle partnerships – how are those evolving ? LH : We ’ re working with the designers from Marchesa , currently Georgina Chapman and Keren Craig . They ’ re just wonderful connoisseurs for their brand , definitely representative of our target guest .
It gave us the opportunity to not only talk about our connection and our design connection , but also to really highlight having weddings at a St . Regis . So we ’ re working with them right now on how we can evolve that strategy and maybe focus on honeymoons next .
RE-ENGINEERING
THE LUXURY
Lisa Holladay , Marriott International vice president and global brand leader of luxury
A CHAT WITH MARRIOTT ’ S GLOBAL BRAND LEADER OF LUXURY .
By CHLOE RILEY , ASSOCIATE EDITOR
50 hotelsmag . com September 2017