Starwood Hotels & Resorts’ first HotStarts sales and marketing training session, held in Shanghai in July, was attended by more than 100 delegates from 10 Asian countries.

Set up as a twice-a-year conference of sorts, the first session, held in Shanghai in July, was attended by more than 100 delegates from 10 countries in the region.

Through classroom-based, hands-on training, HotStarts focuses on delivering Starwood’s strategy and objectives in the region, teaching new associates about alignment and how to leverage Starwood resources, tools and systems to drive and maximize market share.

“We made the decision to launch HotStarts as part of our many initiatives to build the talent pool in the company,” says Miguel Ko, president of Starwood Hotels & Resorts, Asia Pacific. “Starwood is growing at an unprecedented rate (in Asia Pacific) and managing the human capital is our No. 1 priority. (So) we have developed comprehensive orientation tools to groom our associates and prepare them for their current and future roles.”

Alongside the HotStarts program, Starwood also recently launched www.starwood.jobs, a recruitment site offering comprehensive job search options, including the ability to customize a job search according to geographical location, language capabilities or brand preferences, as well as the opportunity to create job alert profiles.

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