Marriott International Vice President Hotel Development – Australia, New Zealand, and Pacific, Richard Crawford, discusses the group’s expansion of select service brands.
As the world’s largest hotel company, Marriott International manages and franchises hotels across all tiers of accommodation. In recent times, however, we have experienced a surge in the expansion of our select service brands, including Courtyard by Marriott, Four Points by Sheraton, AC Hotels by Marriott, and Moxy.
Numerous factors are driving this change, although our industry correctly points to the evolving needs of today’s travellers, plus escalating construction costs, as the dominant reasons for the proliferation of developer interest in hotels with smaller rooms and fewer facilities, often in non-CBD locations.
Marriott International’s current period of expansion will be remembered as a transformative time for our business, not only in terms of rooms growth, but also for the way our hotels have changed – because more than half of our pipeline projects are select service hotels.
Our distinctive select service brand, AC Hotels by Marriott made its stunning Australian debut in Melbourne’s Southbank in May, while five Moxy hotels are slated to open in the next three years across Australia and New Zealand. First, will be the 301-room Moxy Sydney Airport (in Q2 2023), which will join a global portfolio that has surged beyond 100 hotels, from just twelve hotels five years ago.
Together with our flagship upscale brands (Four Points by Sheraton and Courtyard by Marriott), Marriott has 12 select service projects under planning or construction in the Australia Pacific region. The recent signing of the 200-room Courtyard by Marriott Western Sydney Airport – the first hotel to be announced for Sydney’s second airport – is the latest example of our assertive expansion plans for Marriott’s largest global brand. Courtyard’s credentials as the world-leader in the select service upscale category position the brand exceptionally well as an airport hotel offering.
The undeniable trend towards select service hotels speaks to the “less is more” appetite of travellers and hotel owners alike, whose respective needs are changing the face of hotel development, at a time when more than ever, ingenuity and adaptability will be the keys to hotel investment success.