A Review of Marriott and Marriott's Web Presence

Marriott and the Web.

Last week I looked at Marriott as an example of Integrated Communications. This week we will look a little bit more in depth at Marriott’s web presence and the company’s website. Before we dive deeper it has to be noted that Marriott is a large company that is also the parent of other chains such Ritz-Carlton, Courtyard, and Renaissance Hotels. Many of the Marriott and subsidiary local hotels also have their own websites which are separate from the main website. It would be impossible to analyze every single hotels and chains website so we will look at the main Marriott website and how it relates to their flagship hotel chain.

Architecture of the Website

If you type in www. marriott.com and take a look at the desktop version of the website you will immediately notice that it is an active JavaScript page. You can click on any of the five rectangles they will switch places allowing the user to move to another part of the website. The very initial screen allows the user to reserve a hotel room for the location and date range required. The other four screens discuss deals offered by Marriott, member rewards, and highlights the other Marriott owned hotel chains.

www.marriott.com main page.

The bottom bar of images is scrollable but the Get Connected button is always in the middle inviting the user to read blogs by Marriott, connect with them on multiple social media platforms or add Marriott to your RSS feed. Below the buttons there is a list of all the Marriott owned chains and links to respective websites. All the websites for each independent chain open as an inlay in the main Marriott website.

If you click on any of buttons or links such as Explore & Plan or Meetings & Events the pages look visually the same throughout the website. The reservation menu, meeting scheduler, and rewards menu all look very similar making it easy for the user to brown among the website without being confused. If you skip to any of the sub-pages from the main landing page the structure of the page remains the same with a static top menu bar and all options or links listed in a bar or JavaScript pop up on the left.

The mobile website is a very simple, flat gray page. It only has a total of five links and a link at the bottom to the Marriott mobile app for both iOS and Android. As your browse through the mobile website the page remains a dull gray with five to six links per page.

The Design

Each of the different chains have a unique color scheme, however the Marriott main page and all Marriott pages retain the same color scheme. The menus are metal gray and the page has a white background. This carries over to Marriot’s social media pages such as Facebook and Twitter. Marriott’s Instagram page breaks from this color scheme but this is mostly to Instagram’s restrictions on how profiles are displayed.

Among the grey menus and white backgrounds majority of the pages have images from different Marriott hotels or destinations in vivid color. This stands out against the otherwise matted color scheme. Some other pages within the website have lists of locations or options instead of a menu side on the left side. The

Social Media and Content

The Get Connected button on the landing page takes the user to what could be called the social hub of Marriott’s webpage. The regular reservation and member rewards tabs get replaced by a number of different topics about Marriott such as Culture and Hotel Development. As typical on the left hand there is a menu that contains buttons that link to Marriott’s social media profiles and the ability to add them to your Yahoo and Google RSS reader.

Deals, information, and info about the different hotels are continually updated throughout the website. The most updated part of the website are the deals and special offers from Marriott. Each continent, region, and hotel is neatly listed and updated. Some of the deals are reflected on Marriott’s social media channels but social media channels don’t focus too heavily on advertising Marriott or special deals.

The Push and Pull on Marriott.com

The Marriott website has very little push marketing involved. There are no pop ups or automatically playing videos. You can sign up for e-mail lists or follow Marriott through your RSS but there isn’t even direct advertising for that. The website does have a ton of pull advertising with deals and guides embedded on almost every page. Many of the pages display large, colorful images of beautiful locations across the world where there are Marriott hotels. There are member’s rewards and rewards credit cards but there is no content being directly pushed through the website.

On the web Marriott utilizes SEO and buys advertising space on Google, Bing, and Yahoo. By searching specific cities either Marriott or one the subsidiaries will pop up as an advertised page.

What Could Marriott Improve?

 

Personally I would say that I am not a huge fan of the grey and white color theme. Although the colorful images stand out vividly in the color scheme the page overall can look drab at times. The links and lists utilized on the website are also a drab grey with no hint of color anywhere.

Although Marriott’s social media accounts are well ran the social media page on Marriott’s website is not as well done. The social media buttons on the left hand menu are barely visible and not all of Marriott’s accounts are listed. The RSS feed logo for Yahoo is the old Yahoo symbol as is the Google logo although that is barely noticeable. This page is also the only location where the social media buttons are located. If they would be placed throughout the main Marriott webpage it would improve the flow of customers between the social media accounts and the website.