'Have you ever wondered about the herculean effort that goes into running a successful hotel—or thousands of them?'

This is how CNBC is promoting its major documentary on Marriott. 



The one-hour documentary is called:  “Hotel:  Behind Closed Doors at Marriott” and it premieres December 12th at 9 PM ET/PT.  It was six months in the making and as the title implies, we allowed cameras in places never seen before. 

I’m particularly interested to see how CNBC captures our company’s story…and what ended up on the cutting room floor.  (You can watch the preview through the link below.)



http://youtu.be/lFEkZyG3ous

At last count, CNBC rolled its cameras on more than 25 different locations. That doesn’t include all the phone calls and background interviews they did, and it doesn’t include all the homework they did with owners, customers and other industry experts.  They even took at ride with me around the Washington beltway in one of my classic cars.

To be honest, this was a stretch for us at times.  CNBC wanted to show how The Ritz-Carlton Hotels are the “gold standard” in service.  We wanted to help them show how we maintain our high level of services while not intruding on the guest experience. 

We really tried to pull back the covers and let CNBC inside the inner workings of our company – a company that I have devoted my life to building.

In the process, we learned a lot about ourselves.  For instance, I knew we bought a lot of bacon—(our guests love the breakfast buffet).  But I didn’t know we serve 76 million slices a year!  Some other fun facts:  each year, we go through 48 million key cards – please return them -- and 1 million “Do Not Disturb” signs; I have no idea why anyone would take a “Do Not Disturb” sign. 

My hope is that CNBC will show the complexity of running a global hotel business, but also the fun side of hosting nearly 1 million guests around the world every night.  So tune in.  Based on their promo, CNBC will take you “behind closed doors” as we prepare for a hurricane; explain The Ritz-Carlton Mystique and show you how we are expanding globally.

It will be an unprecedented look at our business.  After you watch, leave a comment and let me know what you think.

I’m Bill Marriott and thanks for helping me keep Marriott on the move.

www.blogs.marriott.com/marriott-on-the-move