Marriott Individual Incentives Spans the Globe

When Marriott International created the Individual Incentive Department in 1992, it focused initially on US oriented products to meet the needs of US based customers and direct business to our US hotels.   But David Riddell, founder of the program, always understood the need to provide incentives for customers and hotels around the world.    So, what started as a small department of two has now grown to over 60 associates worldwide.   In addition to our office in Washington , D.C. , and Salt Lake City , we have offices in London , Frankfurt and Hong Kong as well as product to match these geographical regions.    Our dollar denominated products, while starting as a US only product, was changed virtually overnight to have a global reach (ability to be redeemed at any of our hotel around the world).   When used outside of the United States , the certificate value is automatically converted to the local currency and applied to the guest bill.  To meet changing customer demands, however, we do have currency denominated products available in Canadian dollars, Euro’s, Pound Sterling, Yen and Australian Dollars.  We have hotel stay certificates that are tailored to specific geographic regions (e.g., Europe , Asia , Americas ), or include all of our hotels around the world.   We work with our customers to find the best product for their needs and the needs of there participants, whether it ’s for a multi-country incentive program, or a major program winner who wants to travel the world, we make it happen for our client.

Going global has certainly added value to our customers as they can continue to personalize our awards to whatever theme fits the program they are running.   Additionally, more and more companies are managing individual incentive programs on a global basis so having certificates they can award to the recipient, wherever they are located in the world is much easier than shipping merchandise.  

To help our customers who are managing programs globally, we launched eIncentives in January 2007.   The ability to send a paperless certificate to our customers allows for quick delivery no matter where they are in the world.     We have also launched some international incentive websites for UK and AU and plan to launch the China Website at the end of June.   Slated for next year are websites for Continental Europe and Caribbean/Latin America.   

Marriott Individual Incentives believes with over 2,700 hotels around the world, we need to continue to grow and enhance our products and services to fit within a globa l market.