We don't sit here and talk at the end of

the pier.

>> It's my favorite interview of the year.

It's the only one I get to wear

sunglasses.

>> I appreciate it. Well, you can do it on

earnings call. Nobody sees you, right?

>> true. Yeah.

>> Um you know, [snorts] I was walking by

the JW Marriott here. I mean, it's it's

packed. I've seen people in and out of

that hotel all week here at Cannes

Lions. You have so many brands. That's

just one brand in the portfolio. How do

you keep them so distinct?

>> Well, we've got brand leaders across

each sector. We tend to bucket them in

three categories: select brands, premium

brands, and luxury brands. And And the

brand leaders, among their most

important responsibilities, is ensuring

that each of the brands in the portfolio

has a well-articulated distinct

positioning. If If your strategy is to

have such a broad brand portfolio,

that's part of the responsibility that

comes with it.

>> notice those differences?

>> For sure. For sure. And I think if we're

fair with ourselves, there's still work

to be done. Bill Marriott loves to say

success is never final. And I think as

it relates

to positioning the portfolios within the

brand, that's work that that is ongoing.

>> What brands that you've launched in the

past 2 years are on fire, and why have

you launched them?

>> Uh CitizenM, I think is a great example.

Uh it's a brand that we acquired. And uh

it's just it's a brand that resonates.

It's a tech-forward brand. It's got a

European design aesthetic. Um modestly

sized rooms, but very efficiently

designed. So, I think that's on fire.

And then in the organic side,

I would point to something like Studio

Res, which

was part of our entry into the midscale

tier. It's an extended-stay focused

midscale brand. And I think in a

post-pandemic world, where people are so

nomadic, uh the ability to move into a

product like that that's efficient,

meets their needs if they're on

temporary assignment, if they're trying

out a new city for a few months, uh

that's that's a terrific growth platform

for us as well.

>> Walking up and down this I guess it's a

promenade of events packed and I realize

well, I'm I'm getting old. There's so

many like young people at this event and

how are they booking hotels differently

and what do they want from the hotel

today?

>> Well, so maybe on the first one one of

the things we're so excited about just

last week we launched a beta test of

something called Ask Bonvoy which is a

plain language search capability within

the Bonvoy ecosystem.

>> program.

>> Yeah, exactly.

>> Exactly.

>> what they want. They want to search in

plain language.

We've got 10,000 hotels. We just opened

our 10,000th hotel this month. We're in

146 countries and the ability in plain

language to search a portfolio that

broad I think is what that next gen

consumer really wants in travel. What do

they expect in the hotel? Really depends

on trip purpose but what they always

want is warm genuine care.

They want reliability.

They want the Wi-Fi to work so they can

do all their streaming of course.

I think food and beverage is

increasingly an important attribute and

really across all quality tiers. Even if

it's a Fairfield Inn and it's a grab and

go, they want it to be high quality,

they want it to be nutritious all the

way up to ultra luxury. Food and

beverage in many ways when I started in

this business there were certain pockets

of the world where the reputation and

quality of food and beverage drove room

booking decisions. I think that's across

quality tiers and across geographies

today.

>> You know, it's you know, how would my I

guess my mom and dad they would care

about thread counts at the hotel in the

sheets. I mean well then how do you

reinvent the dining experience at your

hotels? You have 10,000 hotels.

>> The two words that come to mind to me

are local and authentic. You know, I I

think there are some core menu items

that people want everywhere but if I go

to India, I want the richness of those

those regional cuisines. And so, hiring

local, having local culinary talent,

being creative with menu design, those

are the things our customers really

want.

>> into the wellness trend? I And I bring

this up because I I stayed at one of

your properties about a year and a half

ago, and

it was a like the facial experience

I got a facial. I've never got a My

first facial came at your hotel.

>> How do we do?

>> I used to damn well.

>> Good. Yeah, I you know, but what's

interesting to me, I love that you use

the word wellness because I think early

people thought sort of combined the idea

of wellness and spa. And spa is spa is

certainly a part of it, but the wellness

and the longevity focus of many of our

consumers has grown exponentially. And

you may have seen we entered into a

joint venture with an Italian company

called Lefay, and that'll be a

our entry into luxury wellness. They

have some amazing resorts. We think we

can grow together quite aggressively.

And that desire for well-being is

something we hear from consumers across

every demographic.

>> You know, I've seen recently one of your

I'm still calling Airbnb a competitor.

They have made a big push or or a desire

to be an everything app. You go there in

app, you book everything, whether it's

food, you name it. Do you want to push

the company in that direction?

>> Well, I think what we want you you look

at the history of loyalty platforms all

through the travel vertical on the hotel

side and the airline side, and it they

were fairly rudimentary. You would

enroll, you would stay, you'd earn

points for a hotel stay, and ultimately

you'd accumulate and redeem those points

for hotel stay. And while that facet of

Bonvoy is still foundational, we've got

much broader aspirations for the

platform, and a lot of those aspirations

around experiences. So, you think about

some of the partnerships we have with

the the AMG Petronas Mercedes team in

F1, the work we're doing in partnership

with Visa for the FIFA World Cup.

Bonvoy is increasingly viewed by our

nearly 300 million members as a platform

that helps unlock those

once-in-a-lifetime experiences.

>> Um we've still have seen tensions in the

Middle East. Now, you called this out in

your latest earnings call. I mean,

travel over there is is pressured. Now

that things have eased up just a touch,

any improvement in your business there?

>> Yeah, incrementally. But again, to

ground it, and we talked about this on

the call, the Middle East region, while

extraordinarily important, represents

about 3% of our global rooms uh supply,

uh and about 3% of our global fees. Uh

we expect RevPAR will be down in Q2 plus

or minus about 50%, but I was just in

London with all of our Middle East

general managers 2 weeks ago. And in

talking to them, this is certainly

anecdotal, but their view is as soon as

travelers both in the region and

internationally have a sense that the

the tensions have in fact settled, they

expect a very deep recovery.

>> I saw I talked to the CEO of Elf Beauty.

Uh they sell lower-end more affordable

cosmetics here at Can Lines. They said

the glowing consumer has shown, I think,

a little bit of a more of strength in

the past few weeks as gas prices have

come down. What are you seeing this

summer travel season?

>> saw it in Q1. Uh the prior few quarters

we'd seen flat or even slightly negative

RevPAR in the select brand tier, and we

were up low single digits in Q1, which

was a really encouraging sign. As we

look towards the summer, in the US, we

had a great Memorial Day weekend. Uh we

feel good about forward bookings on 4th

of July. And even here in Europe, we see

pretty solid bookings of inbound

international. So, we expect the summer

to be strong.

>> You've negotiated uh really amazing

deals in these these co-branded credit

cards. I mean, the revenue is supposed

to be up what, 35% this year to almost a

billion dollars. How are you dispersing

that money to hotel owners? I'm sure you

saw that journal story.

>> Yeah, yeah. I I read it. Listen, the um

if your business model is 10,000 hotels

of which we own 20, the collaboration

and the communication we have with the

owner community of the the other 9,980

is a top priority. And the the success

and the performance of the owner

community and the brand are inextricably

linked. And so on a proactive basis

through advisory councils, through

periodic meetings, through account

meetings with individual owners and

franchisees, that dialogue goes on every

day, principally from a proactive

perspective, but in this instance in a

more reactive perspective, we need and

want to see that owner community and

their businesses thrive and succeed. And

so the dialogue we have is ongoing and I

think quite productive.

>> you're willing to give them more. I

always viewed Marriott as like a

family-ish company.

>> Yeah, I mean most of these relationships

with these owners are multi-decade

relationships. Uh all of us have gladly

and willingly entered a sector that is

by its nature cyclical. And so we work

really collaboratively to try to help

both sides of that equation navigate the

inevitable cycles that we that we

operate in.

>> Good to see you, Anthony. Enjoy. I know

you got a lot of cool events here at

Cannes Lions. Hopefully hope to attend

one of them.