Marriott International

In 1927, J.W. Marriott Sr. and his wife, Alice, opened a nine-stool root beer stand in Washington and built it into the Hot Shoppes chain of Washington-area restaurants, incorporating Hot Shoppes Inc. in 1929.⁠[1]

In 1953, Hot Shoppes, Inc. became a public company, offering stock at $10.25 per share.⁠[2]

The company entered the hotel business in 1957 with the Twin Bridges Motor Hotel in Arlington, Virginia.⁠[1]

The company was renamed Marriott Corporation in 1967. In 1993, Marriott Corporation split into two separate companies, Host Marriott Corporation and Marriott International, Inc.⁠[2]

In 1998, Marriott International planned to combine its Marriott Management Services division with Sodexho’s North American operations as Sodexho Marriott Services, Inc. and to spin off its remaining business to shareholders as a pro rata special dividend. The spun-off company was to be renamed Marriott International, Inc., with its common stock listed on the New York Stock Exchange, and the transactions were expected to close on March 27, 1998.⁠[3]

On December 14, 2011, the board elected J.W. Marriott, Jr. executive chairman and chairman of the board and named Arne Sorenson chief executive officer, effective March 31, 2012. J.W. Marriott, Jr. said he had personally recruited Sorenson to Marriott in 1996.⁠[4]

On October 7, 2013, the company announced it would move its listing from the New York Stock Exchange to The NASDAQ Stock Market, with trading expected to begin on October 21, 2013, under its existing ticker symbol “MAR.”⁠[5]

On September 23, 2016, the company completed its acquisition of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc.; Starwood shareholders received $21.00 in cash and 0.80 shares of Marriott Class A common stock per share. The combined company had 30 brands and more than 5,700 properties with 1.1 million rooms in over 110 countries.⁠[6]

The company disclosed a security incident involving the Starwood guest reservation database. An internal security tool raised an alert on September 8, 2018, and the investigation found unauthorized access to the Starwood network since 2014. The database held information on up to approximately 500 million guests, some of it including passport numbers and encrypted payment card numbers.⁠[7]

The UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) fined Marriott International £18.4 million for the breach from the point the GDPR came into force in May 2018. About 339 million guest records were involved worldwide. It had proposed about £99.2 million in July 2019; the final amount reflected Marriott’s representations and the economic impact of COVID-19.⁠[8]

Arne Sorenson died on February 15, 2021, at 62, while battling pancreatic cancer; CEO since 2012, he was the first chief executive without the Marriott surname. On February 23 the company named Anthony Capuano chief executive officer and a board member.⁠[9]

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and a coalition of state attorneys general announced settlements with Marriott and Starwood over three data breaches, which the FTC said began in June 2014, July 2014 and September 2018 and affected more than 344 million guest records. The District of Columbia and every state except California joined the coalition.⁠[10]

One settlement required Marriott to pay $52 million and strengthen its security practices, and the proposed FTC order required an effective cybersecurity program, annual compliance certification for 20 years and a third-party assessment every two years.⁠[11]

At year-end 2025 the system had 1,779,936 rooms and Marriott managed the employment of about 414,000 associates.⁠[12]

Total revenues for 2025 were $26,186 million (2024: $25,100 million) and net income was $2,601 million (2024: $2,375 million), or $9.51 per diluted share. The year-end development pipeline comprised 4,056 properties with nearly 610,000 rooms.⁠[13]