Tony Capuano, CEO of the world’s largest hotel company, Marriott International, joined Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan on Sunday and said he is seeing significant acceleration in demand as business starts to rebound from the pandemic.
“The reality is people are traveling, which is why we can’t let our guard down,” Capuano said. “We’ve got to continue to adhere to the CDC protocols and keep our cleaning and operating protocols in place.”
When asked about why he incentivized Marriott employees to get vaccinated, Capuano said, “We didn’t need to; we chose to. Our culture is very much an employee-first culture, and we wanted to make sure they had access to education about the vaccinations and the flexibility to take time off work if they chose to get vaccinated.”
Having cut thousands of jobs and some US$276 million in business, Capuano said the recovery of both really depends on demand recovery, which is driven by consumer confidence. “The good news is we have such great visibility into real-time data. In certain markets where the vaccine- the virus containment seems to be proceeding well and where you’re seeing broad distribution of vaccine, we are seeing demand recover and that’s allowing us to bring many of our employees back.”
He added that Marriott expects to continue to see growth in demand in drive-to destinations and leisure destinations. “One of the really interesting phenomenon we’ve seen over the last year is a blending of trip purposes. People have learned that they can, in fact, work from almost anywhere. And as a result, we’re seeing our guests combine business travel with leisure travel.”
As for the recent increase in gas prices in the U.S., Capuano added Marriott has not yet seen any impact. “There is enormous pent up demand and because of concerns about safety, we continue to see lots of appeal of drive-to destinations,” he added.
When Brennan asked about technology’s ability to keep labor costs down, Capuanao said in markets where demand is recovering, Marriott is seeing those jobs come back, and in many of the stronger markets they are actively hiring. “I think what those technological advances allow us to do is really engage our employees more in interacting with the guests and meeting their needs,” he said.
In response to a question about the potential effectiveness of vaccine passports, Capuano said time will tell. “What we know with certainty, however, is a global, coordinated, reliable health credential system will be key to giving folks comfort about traveling to and to giving jurisdictions comfort in opening their borders.”
When asked about a timeframe for removing restrictions to allow more global travel, Capuano said it varies by jurisdiction. “We know there’s enormous pent-up demand for international travel and we know those destinations, like many European cities, are struggling mightily because they rely so heavily on inbound international travel. The markets that have recovered most quickly are those that have depths of demand domestically. So, we’ve seen that in drive-to destinations in the U.S. and we’ve seen it across China.”
As for a promise from the White House on lifting travel restrictions for certain international travelers coming into the U.S., Capuano replied, “Not yet.”