MANY HANDS MAKE LIGHTWORK: At left, Starwood Hotels & Resorts CEO Frits van Paasschen inspects a team of young tree-planting volunteers at a Starwood- and PepsiCo-sponsored corporate social responsibility initiative held this past spring in New York City’s East Harlem neighborhood. At right, the nonprofit New York Restoration Project accepts a $50,000 donation.
about the environment and interest in sustainability will define this new generation. How that will influence travel, I believe, is that the connection to brands and what they bring will be even more important.We have an opportunity with brands like Aloft and Element to key into exactly the kinds of things that this new generation is looking for. But at the sametime, we can use those brands as a way of learning and updating our brands that are more traditional. So, we look at a brand like Sheraton, where we
learned from this tech-savvy traveler that we could create a social space that attracted people. Whether it’s the “third place” phenomenon or the idea of a cyber café, the Link at Sheraton really keys in on the notion of “downstairs people”—that we in general as travelers might not be comfortable going to the bar or restaurant alone, [but] the idea of going down, hav- ing a glass of wine, checking the Internet, maybe watching a game and doing all of those things at once is something we’re all comfortable doing.
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For more informa- tion about Starwood Hotels & Resorts, visit www.starwood .com. To learn more about Starwood’s “Get More forYour Meeting, Give More to Your
How has Starwood adjusted in terms of meetings and group business to the new environment brought on by the recession? I arrived in 2007, and not long thereafter, the world fell apart—and I like to think those two events were unrelated. [Laughs.] I joined Starwood largely attracted by the brand portfolio and the history of innovation, but also because I had a strong belief that the growth in prosperity around the world meant that there was a huge, long-term, secular oppor- tunity to grow our business. We think in terms of this being a cyclical business, with sev-
eral good years and then a downturn. As the downturn hit,we had to adjust our way of operating.We became very focused on strengthening our balance sheet and controlling costs, and reacting to the fact that…businesses did what youwould expect in a severe downturn, which is they canceled meetings. They
got uncomfortable being seen havingmeetings in anywayappear lavish. I was asked whether I felt that the luxury part of busi- ness was dead—and I always believed, and still continue to today, that as business gets more confidence in the future, peo- ple will come backto luxury. As we got into 2010, and we saw a stronger recovery than many of us might have hoped for—companies were saying, “This is a great opportunity to get out and develop business.” And business travel in general, and specifically meetings, are an important part of build- ing business.Andsowesaw a good jump in our book- ings for meeting business, a sharp reduction in cancellations—and people saying, “This meeting that I was thinking of having, I’m now going to do, and I’m going to try to do it as quickly as I can.” That bodes extremely well for the health of meetings.
Starwood gave $50,000 to the New York Restoration Project. Why is CSR something that can’t be cut out of the budget? This was a contribution that we made in conjunction with our partners at PepsiCo. My own view is that companies today can operate with an eye towards responsibility and doing good business at the same time. Behaving responsibly and in a sustainable way
as a company can be done—and at the same time give your guests a good experience and do the right thing for theP&Land your shareholders. I don’t see those as mutually exclusive. I’ll just take sustainability for a second. There are many things
we can do that have a short paybackthat don’t affect the guest experience, that save energy and reduce our carbon footprint. Our customers are increasingly asking us what we’re doing in this arena. It’s becoming an important criteria for choosing brands and deciding with whom you want to do business.
Hunter R. Slaton is a senioreditorof Convene. pcmaconvene December 2010 111