Marriott announced today that they are bringing the desk back to guest rooms based on guest feedback. All new renovations will include a standard desk in the room as well as hardwood flooring and bathrooms with showers only (at most properties that are not family resorts).
When Dan Wetzel of Yahoo Sports asked who stole the desk from his Marriott hotel room last December, media buzz and fervor to protest the new design intensified, a Flyertalk forum was started all the way back in May 2014. I asked Marriott for a comment last December and was referred to this page which simply provided details on the “Brilliant” and “Innovative” changes being implemented across the brand. Bill Marriott discussed the changes over a year ago in a WSJ piece, explaining that Millennials crave a room that feels like a “Silicon Valley startup”…hmm
Back then I wrote:
I didn’t expect much more from Marriott as the redesign is already in full swing and given the fact that they spent millions on consultants before embarking on the changes. As a Millennial, I do find myself working more and more often from the bed (who remembers the days of bringing along an extra long Ethernet cord so you could browse from the bed prior to widespread hotel wifi access), but I do like having a desk…even if only for storage. The new rooms do have “space for everything”according to the link I was provided by press
Well it seems like the hotel finally sided with their guests rather than the consultants and desks are already back at hotels in Charlotte and Brooklyn with 25 other “updated” renovations scheduled to complete by the end of the year.
The previous re-design…
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5 comments
Marriott the brand or all hotels across the Marriott company (including newly acquired Starwood Hotels)???
@andrew – This only applies to Marriott the brand, not the portfolio. I’m sure they’ll consider this though when remodeling any of the other combined brands.
So how will Marriott marketing spin the wheel here? Is this change more brilliant than the brilliant move last year?
Now if not they’d put a full door on the closet! New ones are barn door which I like but only cover half the closet space, which I don’t like. So you can cover your hanging clothes or the iron and ironing board. I don’t want any of it on display.
This was one of those hair-brained decisions that probably will cost or already has cost someone a promotion. Starwood hotels ALWAYS have desks, and so I’m sure that point was strongly made in the period before the merger to encourage Marriott to return to sanity.
Millennials might like things a bit different, but they still aren’t the overwhelming majority at most brands–and that especially is true for the Starwood brands. And even at the Starwood brands where millennials were starting to increase, like Aloft, W, and even St Regis, there never was any interest in getting rid of desks. Marriott simply drew a stupid conclusion from whatever limited data set it reviewed. And everyone knew it.