Starwood Founder’s Take On Current Hotel Business “If you’re not having fun, get out of”

The founder of Starwood Hotels, Barry Sternlicht, has been in the spotlight recently after he decided to revive the Starwood Hotels & Resorts brand (read more here, here, and here), which Marriott had stopped using.

Sternlicht is a visionary leader that the hotel space currently desperately needs, rather than bean counters who do nothing but try to cut costs while taking all the fun and excitement out of the business.

You can access CoStar’s full interview here.

Here are the best parts:

“If you like people, be in this industry. If you don’t, go code in a garage in Mongolia,” he said. “This is a fun business, and it should be fun. If you’re not having fun, you shouldn’t be in the business.”

It should be evident that if you don’t like people, you should not be in the hospitality industry. If you don’t have fun in any business you are in, you should get out.

“I left Starwood Hotels in 2005, and I still get complaint letters from guests,” Sternlicht said. “I used to send them to Arne Sorenson, and now I send them to Tony [Capuano], which I enjoy.”

Oh. This was a good part.

“The thing was we licensed the name. Starwood Capital existed before Starwood Hotels, and I gave it to them for a nominal fee, like $1,” he said. “When Marriott stopped using the name, it reverted back to me. So we took the name back and renamed our management company.”

Starwood Capital owns the Starwood name, which predates Starwood Hotels. Marriott no longer used the brand, so they took it back (huge strategic mistake for Marriott).

“I used to say at Starwood Hotels that we don’t want to be the K car,” he said. “We aren’t all things to all people.”

This is where many of the current industry leaders are doing it incorrectly. They want to be everything to everyone, but they end up being irrelevant.

The instinct is to go like everyone else, and that’s exactly the wrong strategy to adopt. You’ve got to think outside the box.”

If you examine any of the recent brand launches, they are nothing but straight carbon copies of existing products on the market.

Guests “like the design, but they compliment the people, and I think that’s a great opportunity. It’s that focus on service,” he said.

All hospitality businesses eventually fail if they are unable to attract people who enjoy what they do.

Starwood Hotels Coverage:

Starwood Capital Group Resurrects Starwood Hotels & Resorts Brand

Marriott CEO Comments About Resurrection Of Starwood

SH Hotels Now Officially Rebranded As Starwood Hotels

Conclusion

The hospitality business desperately needs another shakeup.

It feels like lawyers and accountants run the entire industry, with little vision or enthusiasm beyond trying to meet the next quarter’s numbers. This can only work for so long.

There are numerous indistinguishable brands on the market that serve no purpose.

They might have meant something in the past, but once they have been going through cost-cutting process, there is nothing unique or personable left.  They are merely just another big box.

I wish that Sternlicht’s new Starwood Hotels would bring some excitement and innovation back to the business.

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