February Monthly Integration Recap | SPG Hotels
Franchise Management Companies | Moving forward, we will continue to provide a monthly recap of the key changes shared with – and tasks asked of – SPG hotels related to the integration. We appreciate your support in ensuring your hotels remain informed and engaged throughout this process.
As part of our continued effort to keep hotels informed, SPG hotels will continue to receive weekly email content via The Check-In, and Change Crews will have the opportunity to participate in weekly integration webinars, which are held on Tuesdays at 1 p.m. ET. Email changecrew.northamerica@marriott.com with any questions. Additionally, franchise management company contacts have the opportunity to participate in twice monthly webinars which are held on the second and fourth Friday of each month at 2 p.m. ET. Stay tuned to the weekly mi360 RUNDOWN for details, which will be shared the week prior to each webinar.
SUMMARY OF THIS MONTH’S KEY ACTIVITIES
- 2018 ‘Prepare Now’ Integration Milestones
- TravelClick
- SPG Pro Offers
- RM Training Workshops
- Reservation Platform Systems
- Human Rights Training Compliance
- Mobile Key Brand Standard and Activation
- Emails Migrating to Marriott Cloud Environment
2018 “Prepare Now” Integration Milestones | As part of the Big 4 | Platform Integration, SPG hotels will be migrating to a unified platform across many of Marriott’s major systems and services. This will enable a more seamless customer experience across all brands and enhance Marriott’s competitive advantage. Management companies are asked to ensure that hotels have submitted their Change Crews and have completed their Land-It tasks by March 5. As a reminder, GMs are required to certify that the project is complete in Land-It once the Change Crew team has finished all implementation activities for the Prepare Now Task List.
TravelClick | As part of the planned Big 4 | Platform Integration effort, your hotel will receive One Yield v2, which is Marriott’s Revenue Management system. One of the capabilities that One Yield v2 provides is recommended retail rates via its Retail Pricing Optimizer (commonly known as RPO).
RPO requires the establishment of rate shopping for a hotel-specific competitive set. The rate shopping capability will be coordinated directly with TravelClick. In order to begin this process, hotels that do not currently use TravelClick received a direct email on Feb. 28 asking them to identify 4-7 competitor hotels to shop. Ensure your hotels complete the Rate Shopping Form no later than Friday, March 9. For any questions, reach out to RMIntegration@marriott.com.
SPG Pro Offers | As part of Marriott’s ongoing efforts to align marketing and loyalty programs, SPG Pro Offers will be retired when offers expire on March 31, 2018. Full portfolio offers will be launched to replace the program in Q2. To support the replacement of the program, Marriott’s first-ever North America portfolio-wide group offer, featuring all Marriott Rewards and SPG brands, will launch in Q2. Additional information is available on MGS.
RM Training Workshops | As part of The Big 4 | Platform Integration, workshops will be held for revenue managers to prepare them for the Reservations platform changes. These hands-on workshops will provide an opportunity for hotels to get set up, versus instructor-led training. Revenue managers will need to have completed the pre-work before attending a workshop. Travel and training cost for one person per property will be covered by Marriott’s integration budget. Please ensure your hotels attend this workshop to assist them in being ready for cutover. Additional details will be communicated as the deployment progresses.
Reservation Platform Systems | A new online database has been created for SPG hotels to help them prepare for their brand’s system “cutover” date, by determining which systems they will transition to as part of the Reservations Platform. For hotels that will transition to Consolidated Inventory/Total Yield (CI/TY), additional action will be required, and these hotels will be provided with a Property Conversion Workbook in the coming days. The online database is accessible via MGS.
Human Rights Training Compliance | All training required in 2018 for Marriott Rewards and SPG hotels is now available in the “Build a Learning Plan” tool. As part of these requirements, Human Rights Training is also to be completed by both Managed by Marriott and franchise properties. If your hotel(s) have completed external human rights training, they are instructed to follow these steps in myLearning to ensure correct recording of completed training. The completion of human rights training is required for all on-property associates, and compliance with reporting the completed training is critical. For more information on human rights training, visit MGS.
Mobile Key Brand Standard and Activation | As of Jan. 1, 2021, Mobile Key will be an auditable brand standard, requiring hotels to install locks compliant with the Mobile Key Lock Standard and activate Mobile Key. Hotels offering SPG Keyless will migrate to the Mobile Key platform in 2018 as part of the Big 4 | Platform Integration. All other SPG hotels must follow the Mobile Key Lock Standard when updating or replacing locks in 2018 and will be able to activate Mobile Key starting in 2019. Questions: Contact mobileservices@marriott.com.
All Starwood Brand and Corporate Emails Migrating to Marriott Cloud Environment | Beginning in April and going until December 2018, Starwood brand and corporate emails will migrate to the Marriott cloud environment. This is a key step towards integrating the company’s collaboration tools and will result in one Global Address List for all associates. To ensure emails with an ongoing business need are not deleted before migration, Marriott recommends archiving those business-critical emails which are dated 10 months and older, prior to the migration date. For more details on the email migration, visit MGS.
