Marriott International defies skills shortages to open 12 high profile hotels in Australia in 2022

American hotel giant Marriott International is developing 12 high-profile hotels in Australia, which are scheduled to open by the end of this year.

Marriott has the biggest construction pipeline in the Asia Pacific region with a total of 290 hotels in the pipeline, however like many businesses and hotel groups post pandemic, the group is suffering from chronic skill storages. 

Its best performing hotels are its luxury hotels including JW Marriott and the W Hotel. Marriott is now the third largest hotel chain in Australia behind French-owned Accor Group and British-owned multinational, IHG Hotels and Resorts. 

According to Marriott International President Rajeev Menon, who is responsible for the Asia Pacific region excluding China, the Marriott is growing.

“When you look across our portfolio what we are seeing right now with our luxury and upper up-scale hotels is that they are experiencing a lot of growth, particularly in resort destinations,” Menon told The Australian.

“When we look at Queensland, we relaunched the JW Marriott in Surfers Paradise after a

$35 million re-do. That has done exceptionally well. Mirage hotels in both the Gold Coast and Port Douglas are (also) doing very well.” 

The Singapore-based Menon is responsible for the business performance and development across 22 countries in the Asia Pacific Region and more than 450 hotels and resorts including 23 brands, but laments current staffing issues. 

“Well over 150 million jobs in travel and tourism have been misplaced,” Menon said, referring to the effect of the pandemic on hospitality workers. 

“Many people have left the industry, and with borders closed you don’t have any backpackers and a lot of the emigrant workforce is not there,” he added. 

Despite this, in 2021 Marriott added four new hotels to its portfolio in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific: W Melbourne, Courtyard by Marriott Brisbane, Melbourne Marriott Hotel Docklands and The Tasman in Hobart which opened in December. 

And the chain is finding ways to circumvent staff shortages. 

“There is pressure but we are aggressively working on multiskilling strategies and the best use of technologies to figure out the best ways to be efficient while we find ways to work more efficiently.”

Not only does Marriott have plans to open 12 more hotels by the end of this year, there are 11 more hotels expected to open across the Asia Pacific region in coming years.

“In Melbourne we have the W which we opened in February last year. We are going to be launching the Ritz Carlton Melbourne this year and we also will launch the W Sydney and they will be iconic assets.

“In terms of growth the W brand is growing very well. We have W Hotels in Brisbane and Melbourne, and Sydney is opening this year.”

At the cheaper end of the scale, Marriott is opening several select service Courtyard by Marriott hotels and a couple of Moxy’s lined up to open in 2023.

Irit Jackson, 10^th February 2022