The Importance of Market Research: The Marriott Company

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The Importance of Market Research: The Marriott Company

The Marriott Company is a successful lodging and hospitality company. It is a company that is internationally recognized and has nearly 3,700 properties, 18 brands in 72 countries and territories worldwide (Marriott, 2012). With such success and worldwide prominence, it is no mistake that it operates with a winning formula that includes market research. "Our relentless focus on innovation and action fuel the way we do business" (Marriott, 2012). Organizations, like Marriott, not only have to compete in a rapidly changing technological environment and a highly diverse global environment, it must consider the importance and role that marketing research plays. Operating in such a competitive industry, the Marriott Company has realized that to be successful and survive for the long term, it incorporates market research in its business practices. This paper will define market research; identify the types, and the importance of marketing research that the Marriott Company uses.

Define Market Research

According to the text, marketing research is defined by the American Marketing Association as "The systematic gathering, recording, and analyzing of data with respect to a particular market, where market refers to a specific customer group in a specific geographic area" (McDaniel & Gates, pg. 6). Marketing research serves two basic functions; first to provide data and insight to a company's decision makers and second to use the data to determine new opportunities for a company (McDaniel & Gates, pg. 6). Through the years, Marriott has used market research for opportunities to expand its brands. In the 1980's Marriott identified an opportunity to expand its target market a...

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...s are essential to its growth domestically as well as globally for the long term. Despite its success with the Courtyard by Marriott, the company continues to expand. “Marriott is a growth company outside the U.S. Thirty-eight percent of all full service hotels are now open outside the U.S. and the growth in international distribution is aggressive and fast. We are expanding into new markets where Marriott is not known.” (Babitch and Chen).

Works Cited

Interviewed by Steven Babitch and Joyce Chen. Edited by Patrick Whitney. Design for the Emerging Markets: Interview with Marriott International. October 12, 2005. Retrieved from:

http://trex.id.iit.edu/events/china/iit-emn_marriott.pdf

Marriott Website, 2012. Retreived at: http://www.marriott.com/default.mi

McDaniel, C. & Gates, R. (2006). Marketing research (7th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

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