Residence Inn Mix Performance: One Year Anniversary

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Residence Inn recently passed the one-year milestone for the new Residence Inn Mix program. This major transformation of a legacy program was developed over a two-year period, with extensive feedback from consumers, owners and franchisees, and RI hotels. As you know, we conducted several rounds of consumer research as well as a robust pilot before launching the program, and we now want to update you on our progress since launch.

As you recall, our call to action was that our old program:

• Generated low guest satisfaction
• Had a low take rate, especially for a complimentary program
• Was unappealing to our Next Gen target customer, who wants a better beverage offering, a more social atmosphere, more local connection, and less quantity but higher-quality food
• Was an undifferentiated offering vs. competitors, who had copied RI’s program
• Had significant inconsistency across hotels

Our goals for the transformation were to:

• Improve guest satisfaction
• Maintain cost neutrality
• Provide executional consistency across the brand
• Increase guest-to-guest and guest-to-associate engagement, for both sales lead generation and for problem resolution purposes

Progress-to-date: We are thrilled to report strong results for the first year of the program

• Guest satisfaction for RI Mix, as measured in guestVoice, is up since deployment a year ago, and not just among our Next Gen target
  • RI Mix scores +6.1 across all guests
  • Gen Y +6.1, Gen X + 5.4, and Boomers + 7.0

• Cost of RI Mix is neutral to old program. From what we see at our MxM hotels and what we hear from franchisees, beverage costs are up due to the improved beer offering (and therefore possibly higher consumption) while food costs are down by almost exactly the same amount, for a net cost-neutral program.

• While scores are also up at hotels not serving beer/wine, they are not up as much as those providing beer and wine (approx. 3 points less). We continue to encourage hotels not serving beer and wine by choice to reconsider, and for those not serving due to license issues to revisit their licensing options. We’ve heard many stories of hotels getting licenses after learning of new service categories, changes in cost / process, etc.

• Consistency is improved. The new program is required only and exactly Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday evenings, and by conducting QA audits exclusively over those nights we are ensuring both compliance with frequency, as well as execution of the offering to standards.

• ~5% (35) hotels have received a waiver from offering RI Mix; these are essentially urban hotels with on-site bars. As in our pilot, both guestVoice and Property feedback indicate zero negative repercussions at waiver hotels.

• Because RI Mix creates a consistent offering, we are now able to put brand marketing and PR efforts behind the program. Initial results of note include:
  • Our 2015 launch PR effort generated 193 million media impressions an ad value of $10 million
  • RI Mix prominently featured in RI’s Brand Ad campaign
  • Recently featured as the cover article of Hotel F&B Magazine

While we are pleased with these results, in true Marriott fashion, we believe success is never final. To that end, we are committed to:

• Quarterly menu refreshes
• Strong encouragement of local craft beer offering
• Improved wine program in 2017
• Training webinars to share best practices for events such as Food Trucks and Local Flavors, which require significant advance planning to ensure success

Lastly, we want to answer some common questions not specifically addressed above.

• We’ve heard feedback that food trucks are challenging in some places. Brand loves food trucks because guests love food trucks; in fact, Food Truck night is the event generating the most positive feedback, and these events create an important local connection. Many hotels say it is their favorite event because of guest enthusiasm, ease of execution, and low cost if executed correctly. Hotels should be hosting a Food Truck night on alternating Wednesdays between April and September, which equates to just 12 events per year. Resources, including training materials and FAQs, are available on MGS to assist hotels with execution. Hotels that are unable to find a food truck may instead offer Local Flavors as the alternative on these nights.
• RI’s ‘Just Desserts’ event is offered on alternate Wednesdays throughout the year, and was born of consumer feedback for 1) an event that started later in the evening, and 2) an event that was focused on ramping down for the night vs. ramping up. Its name evolved post- pilot, and is meant to clearly convey this is a dessert-focused, closing of the evening social event. We wanted to purposefully convey “this is not dinner” to set appropriate expectations for guests; however, please note that savory snacks are offered as well. These events also often incorporate an element of ‘make your own’, which adds to the socialization. It is also important to note that Just Desserts is one of the lower cost events, so it plays an important role in helping to balance the overall program costs.

We appreciate the support and feedback our owner and franchise community has provided over the past year of deployment, and prior two years of development, and as always, we welcome your additional feedback.

It’s not a room, it’s a Residence!

Diane Mayer Vice President & Global Brand Manager Residence Inn

Pat Willenborg Vice President, Americas Franchising Residence Inn