Marriott Company Restructuring to Streamline Ritz-Carlton

Marriott International is undertaking an ambitious corporate makeover that will split it into four autonomous divisions around the globe and bring many formerly independent Ritz-Carlton brand operations into Marriott’s corporate offices.

The final details of the plan, including the number of jobs that will be moved or eliminated, are still being worked out, though Marriott President Arne Sorenson said, “The number of jobs lost will not be very large.”

Even so, he said there would be “significant reshuffling” before the reorganization is complete. Perhaps the Marriott component most affected by the plan will be Ritz-Carlton, which has until now been a stand-alone global division of Marriott.

Many of Ritz-Carlton’s operations are being streamlined into the corporate structure as Marriott works to set up what Sorenson described as four “continental” offices, each of which will have its own president and resources to operate independently.

Each region will have its own teams for all the necessary operations like sales and marketing, revenue management, procurement and finance.

Essentially, Sorenson said, the idea is to decentralize power so that the regional presidents “have the resources necessary to make decisions and so those decisions can be faster, more efficient, more local.”

However, Sorenson emphasized that the change “as it relates to Ritz-Carlton will be entirely invisible to the guest. And we will still have the Ritz-Carlton president, who will make sure that the brand remains very focused.”

The integration of operations will be focused on “the back-of-the-house kind of things,” Sorenson said. “The front of the house will still be very much a Ritz-Carlton brand experience.”

The hotel industry, hit hard by the global economic meltdown and the resulting drop in business travel, is coming off one of the worst years in its history. The luxury segment has been especially hard hit, and Ritz-Carlton has been no exception.