Marriott International history

In 1928, the Marriotts opened their third restaurant, which offered curbside service.

Business was strong and in 1929 the restaurant was incorporated as Hot Shoppes, Inc.

"Curbettes" provided car-side service at the Connecticut Avenue Hot Shoppe in 1936.

In 1937 Marriott branched out from the restaurant business for the first time, pioneering in-flight catering with boxed lunches for Eastern, American, and Capital Airlines flights from Washington's old Hoover Airport.

In 1939 Marriott's food service-management business won an account at the United States Treasury building.

In 1940 Marriott opened five new restaurants.

Soldiers and their dates dine on burgers and shakes at a Hot Shoppe, December 1941.

In 1953, Hot Shoppes, Inc. became a public company via an initial public offering.

J. Willard Marriott tests propeller-side service at the 14th Street Bridge Hot Shoppe, June 1956.

The company opened its first hotel, the Twin Bridges Motor Hotel, in Arlington, Virginia, on January 16, 1957.

Its second hotel, the Key Bridge Marriott in Rosslyn, Arlington, Virginia, was opened in 1959 and is Marriott International's longest continuously operating hotel.

Marriott became international when it acquired an airline catering kitchen in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1966.

Hot Shoppes, Inc. was renamed the Marriott Corporation in 1967.

Woodrow Marriott celebrates the Junior Hot Shoppe in Philadelphia's Progress Plaza, the first African-American owned shopping center in the United States, with members of the Plaza's and the Shoppe's management teams, December 1968.

Along with tight family control and cost control, Bill Marriott Jr., who succeeded his father as CEO in 1972, also agreed with his father that labor unions helped neither the worker nor the company.

In 1976, the company opened two theme parks: California's Great America and Six Flags Great America.

The strategy of controlled growth was evidenced by the fact that in 1977—20 years after the founding of the Marriott hotel chain—the corporation had only 34 full-service hotels.

The Cairo Marriott Hotel and Omar Al Khayyam Casino was the first of Marriott’s African hotels, which opened in 1982.

Pursuing a strategy of catering to business travelers, the company introduced Courtyard hotels in 1983.

The venture began with the purchase of American Resorts Group in 1984.

In November 1985 the corporation bought the Howard Johnson Company.

In a move away from consumer-oriented food operations, the company purchased the food service contractor Saga in 1986.

The first one opened in Atlanta, Georgia, in March 1987.

In 1988 the company began to test market a new restaurant, called Allie's after Alice Marriott.

By 1989 the company owned four timesharing resorts in Hilton Head, South Carolina, and Orlando, Florida, and was in the process of developing several more.

The company subsequently sold its restaurants in April 1990 to Hardee's Food System for $365 million.

In 1992 Bill Marriott and his CFO, Stephen Bollenbach, conceived of a plan--announced in October of that year&mdashø divide Marriott Corporation into two separate publicly traded companies, one that would own hotel properties and another that would manage them.

After a successful test in San Diego, California, the company planned to roll out the restaurant nationwide by opening more than 600 units, both new and converted, by 1993.

In April 1995, Marriott acquired a 49% interest in The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company.

In March 1996 Fairfield Suites by Marriott was launched as an all-suite economy hotel.

Investors once again saw Marriott as a good risk, particularly in February 1997, when the company announced that net income had increased 24 percent over the preceding year's figures.

In April 1998 Marriott announced that it had converted San Francisco's Parc 55 Hotel into a Renaissance hotel and designated it as Marriott's fifteen-hundredth hotel worldwide.

Renaissance Parc 55 represents a major milestone on Marriott's way to its goal of 2,000 hotels by the year 2000.

In 2002 Marriott International began a major restructuring by spinning off many Senior Living Services Communities (which is now part ofSunrise Senior Living) and Marriott Distribution Services, so that it could focus on hotel ownership and management.

Marriott International owned Ramada International Hotels & Resorts until its sale on September 15, 2004 to Cendant.

In 2005, Marriott International and Marriott Vacation Club International were two of the 53 entities that contributed the maximum of $250,000 to the Second inauguration of George W. Bush.

On July 19, 2006, Marriott announced that all lodging buildings they operate in the United States and Canada would become non-smokingbeginning September 2006. “The new policy includes all guest rooms, restaurants, lounges, meeting rooms, public space and employee work areas.”

In 2007, Marriott became the first hotel chain to serve food that is completely free of trans fats at all of its North American properties.

Their second hotel, the Key Bridge Marriott in Arlington, Virginia, is Marriott International’s longest operating hotel, and celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2009.

His released 2010 tax returns showed earnings in 2010 of $113,881 in director's fees from Marriott.

On January 21, 2011, Marriott said that adult movies would not be included in the entertainment offered at new hotels, which would use an Internet-based video on demand system.

Effective March 31, 2012, Bill Marriott assumed the role of executive chairman of the company and relinquished the role of chief executive officer to Arne Sorenson.

Bill Marriott’s second book, Without Reservations: How A Family Root Beer Stand Grew Into a Global Hotel Company, hit the stands in January 2013, earning early praise from past United States presidents and business leaders.”

On November 16, 2015, Marriott announced the acquisition of Starwood for $13 billion.

In 2016, Marriott acquired Starwood Hotels & Resorts, making us the largest and most global lodging company in the world.

On November 30, 2018, Marriott disclosed that the former Starwood brands had been subject to a data breach.

In January 2019, the company updated the number of guests affected to "less than 383 million" customers, and claimed many of the customer's payment cards had expired.

In February 2020, the company discovered a data breach that included the theft of contact information for 5.2 million customers.