Accenture helps Marriott

reach $7 billion in annual

online sales, so guests can
go offline even faster.
With nearly 3,700 properties
in 70 countries, Marriott
International offers global
travelers hospitality
choices across 18 brands.
Business Challenge
Marriott had long realized that its
website formed a key component of
its global brand. As one of the first
to establish a web channel in the
lodging industry, the company rapidly
expanded its global web presence
from 2003 to 2006. It recognized that
being able to attract new customers
and interact with them in their local
language via the web channel would
be critical to drive international
growth and reinforce the company’s
brand. This was particularly important
in emerging markets, such as Asia,
where it planned major investment
to increase its brand awareness.
However, a significant challenge to
achieving this goal was the multiple
languages used across its global
websites. Because many of the
company’s databases and back-end
systems worked entirely in English,
websites created in local languages
could not offer the same depth of
content and functionality as its
primary website, Marriott.com.
Whereas customers of the primary
website could benefit from a
comprehensive range of features
and full access to the company’s
hotel portfolio, customers of local-
language websites lacked several of
these features, including the ability
to search for hotels as well as book
and cancel reservations. Other
key features not available on the
local-language websites included
e-mail confirmation of reservations
and access to its customer loyalty
program, Marriott Rewards.
To overcome these limitations,
Marriott teamed with Accenture on
a globalization program that would
launch a series of new websites giving
all Marriott customers the same, rich
user experience in their own language.
With a consulting relationship of nearly
20 years, Accenture has a proven track
record at Marriott. In 2002, Accenture
successfully helped the company
design, build and implement a new web
platform and content management
solution, and, since then, has provided
a range of application development
support for the Marriott.com platform.
How Accenture Helped
As a first step, Accenture conducted
a globalization strategy project to
determine how Marriott should extend
its web presence at the right scale to
achieve its strategic business priorities.
As part of this effort, Accenture was
asked to develop a technology plan that
would enable Marriott to provide local-
language content and functionality for
each of the websites, in a cost-effective
fashion. After completing the strategy
phase, Marriott engaged Accenture
to move forward with the technology
plan: to design, build, test and deploy
a new, fully internationalized web
application and integrate this platform
with a translation management system.
To accelerate the implementation,
the program was managed as three
concurrent workstreams: integrate a
third-party translation management
system, translate the content into
target languages, and internationalize
the Marriott.com web application
and back-end Marriott systems.
Delivering this complex program in
an accelerated time frame required
Accenture to work closely with
both Marriott and its third-party
translation service provider. Together
they needed to determine the best
solution for identifying Marriott.
com content to be translated, and
the best means of extracting existing
content from, and returning content
to, the source systems. With more
than 1.4 million words being translated
into multiple languages in just three
months, getting content out of the
source systems quickly was critical
in order to provide sufficient time
for the content to be translated.
Integrating the translation management
system with Marriott.com presented
the Accenture team with a challenge.
Because Marriott chose to integrate the
system outside its firewall, Accenture
helped create a Web Services mediator.
An innovative concept, the mediator
routed translation requests through
various systems and databases within
Marriott and third-party vendors. By
using an automated solution, Marriott
was able to substantially reduce the
average time of content translation,
from seven days to just two days.
Another critical part of the program
was to internationalize the web
application code base, thereby
ensuring that all Marriott’s customers
could benefit from a full range of
features, in their language of choice.
To achieve this, Accenture worked
with the Marriott teams who support
the content management system,
reservations system and property
database to identify application and
integration requirements for providing
local-language content online.
In the initial 11-month deployment
phase, Accenture helped Marriott
launch three new versions of the
Marriott.com website—for Germany,
China and Latin America—each
enhanced with substantial new content
and functionality. Despite the scale
of the task—creating the new sites
required translation of more than
1.4 million words per language, and
deploying 76,000 new pages onto
each respective site—the project was
completed on time and on budget.
High Performance Delivered
As its fastest-growing customer
channel, Marriott’s websites play a
critical role in reinforcing the company
brand and supporting its business
goals. With nearly 3,700 properties
spanning 70 countries, being able to
provide targeted and customized web
content to guests in each of those
markets is a key differentiator in a
competitive global marketplace.

Today, thanks to Accenture’s

implementation of a new platform,
with fully integrated language
translation systems and an international
application code, Marriott customers
around the world can book any hotel
from its entire global portfolio as well
as modify or cancel bookings, and
access the Marriott Rewards loyalty
program, in a direct and easy way.

The new platform has also enabled

Marriott to take customer interaction
to an even higher level. By leveraging
analytics integrated into the new
platform, Marriott can customize and
personalize the online experience.
For example, Marriott used analytics
to discover it could significantly
improve the customer experience
on its Chinese language site by
translating an additional 1200 words.
Enhancing its local-language sites
has also helped Marriott quickly
build brand awareness, especially
important in certain emerging markets,
such as China, where previously
Marriott was less well known. An
additional benefit is search engine
optimization. Many local website
visitors originate from local search
engines: having a local presence in
that market gives its customers a
direct channel to Marriott.com.
The results speak for themselves. In
2011, total Marriott.com sales exceeded
$7 billion—a feat that makes Marriott.
com one of the top 10 retail websites
in the world.1 Since launching the
first local-language websites in 2008,
revenue for these sites has experienced
double-digit growth for the Spanish,
German, and French languages, while
revenues for the Chinese-language
website increased by triple digits. As
well as proven results, the quality of
the localized customer experience has
also been acknowledged across the
industry. In 2008, Travel Weekly’s Asia
Industry Awards recognized Marriott.
com with the “Best Online Presence.2”
According to Mike Keppler, Senior Vice
President, Global Sales, Marketing
& Revenue Management Systems,
Marriott International, “This project
has enabled Marriott to reach more
potential customers and interact
with them in their language of
choice. With the new platform, we
have developed the capabilities to
deliver a comprehensive experience
for our customers that goes well
beyond booking a reservation. Our
strategy is one that we believe will
create better long-term value for
our customers and Marriott.”
In a global world, Marriott has
recognized that local is key. By building
local websites with local-language
content and enhanced functionality,
Accenture is helping Marriott to
offer its guests an exceptional
online experience. So they can enjoy
Marriott’s offline hospitality even faster.

1. Source: Rankings of top internet websites are from Internet Retailer (Top 500 Guide,
2009 edition), various public earnings reports and Marriott estimates.
2. Source: Travel Weekly Asia Industry Awards 2008, Online & Technology: Best Online Presence
About Accenture
Accenture is a global management
consulting, technology services and
outsourcing company, with more than
244,000 people serving clients in
more than 120 countries. Combining
unparalleled experience, comprehensive
capabilities across all industries and
business functions, and extensive research
on the world’s most successful companies,
Accenture collaborates with clients to help
them become high-performance businesses
and governments. The company generated
net revenues of US$25.5 billion for the
fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2011. Its home
page is www.accenture.com.

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