Strategy is the common word that we either hear or use countless times in our daily life.

Strategies are being developed and implemented since the time we were born. Strategy can be
experienced in day to day life and anybody is capable enough to scrutinize and react to other’s
strategic moves. Definitely, a person can be a skilled strategist even if he/she does not know
what strategy is or means, just because it is not an exact science nor a defined tool or skill for
itself, but a very abstract attribute of the intricate human cognition that let us to position
ourselves in life according to our personal goals. However, it is not an exclusive attribute of
the human condition (Jofre, 2011).

In context of business Thompson, Strickland and Gamble (2007) defines the strategy as
management’s action plans for running the business and conductive operations (Tapera, 2016).
In simple words strategy is a plan developed for future growth of the business through
competitive moves and business approaches that managers are employing to grow the business,
attract and please customers, compete successfully, conduct operations, and achieve the
targeted levels of organizational performance (Tapera, 2016). The only reason for the need of
strategic planning is because of the competitors prevailing in the market. If there are no
competitors there is no need of strategic planning because strategized planning provides an
edge over other competitors to gain as efficient as possible, seek their opportunity and provides
the ways to tackle the threats that may arise from within or outside the company (Tapera, 2016).
Therefore, it can be rightly said that making strategic planning is very essential for future
development of a business organization, whether the organization is big or small every
businessperson has to plan for the business in advance to succeed in future (Tapera, 2016).

Hospitality is one of the fastest growing and most competitive industry across the globe with
the aim of providing best services to their guests which is intangible in nature as it not only
includes accommodation but also businesses like transportation, cruise lines, entertainment and
events. Therefore, to enter or resist into such an industry strategic analysis is required to be
done which helps to identify the past, present and future trends or potential of the competitors
prevailing in the industry and accordingly setting new goals to achieve through strategic
planning. Thus, it can be said that strategic analysis is the backbone of strategic planning.
However, the significance of Strategic planning can be understood through study of real cases
which take place in the industry (Jofre, 2011).

Let us go a little deeper to understand and highlight the role of strategic planning in hospitality
industry with a real life case. As we are all aware of the circumstances that business
organizations are facing because of emergence of global terrorism groups all over the world.
There have been number of terrorists attacks documented in the recent past all over the world
which shows that hotels are the most targeted place by the terrorists due to easy access and
number to tourists visitors. Many hotels worldwide are facing these political issues and in order
to overcome them they need to plan a proper strategy for the same. Similarly, the case we are
using to explain the strategic planning and its significance in hospitality industry is related to
the same issue of terrorism. So, we are using the case of Marriott international hotels which
faced number of bombing in past and lost their trust to their guests and then how they took up
these challenges and what policies & strategies they planned to overcome this prevailing
situation.

Marriott international is considered the largest and the fastest growing hotel chain after
acquiring Starwoods hotels in 2015 with more than 6,000 properties serving 30 different brands
in 126 countries and territories, reporting revenues of more than $17 billion in fiscal year 2016.
Founded by J. Willard and Alice Marriott and guided by family leadership for nearly 90 years,
Marriott International’s combination with Starwood Hotels & Resorts enhances their
position as the world’s best travel company and brings valuable opportunities for owners
and franchisees to maximize the value of their hotel investment. Marriott is a colossal
brand name with a huge customer following and is considered one of the best in the lodging
business today. With a mission expressing that they want to enhance the lives of their guests
by creating and enabling matchless vacation and leisure experiences with a vision to become
the premiere supplier and facilitator of leisure & holiday experiences across the globe. Marriott
has endeavored to satisfy these objectives through proper strategic management plans heading
to the success of the company and making it what it is today (Marriott International, 2017).

Marriott is one of the hotel company which is able to build up the customers trust back after
number of terror attacks at different properties of the hotel in different countries.

Starting with the first and the most scariest of all the terrorist attacks was the one which took
place in one of the most safest countries i.e. United States of America was “The attacks of
9/11” which destroyed the twin tower and the Marriott World Trade Centre, a steel framed
building with 825 rooms which was at its full occupancy i.e. 1000 registered guests and at the
same time the hotel was also holding the yearly conference of National Association for
Business Economics (NABE). 9/11 attacks are known for one of the deadliest terrorist attacks
in the history of the world which killed around 3000 people and injured 6000 other.
(Coombs, 1995).

Followed by the another terrorist attack in J.W. Marriott south Jakarta, Indonesia on 5th August
2003 in which around 20 people were killed and another 100 were wounded as the car bomb
was detonated by the suicide bomber outside the hotel’s lobby. (Coombs, 1995)

During 2008 the Marriott hotel in Islamabad was considered one of the prestigious hotel in the
capital which was targeted by the terrorists on 20th September 2008 which killed around 150
people and injured another 250. Terrorists used truck filled with about one ton of explosives to
explode in front of the hotel gate. The same property was previously targeted by the terrorists
back in 2003 where bomb went off inside the hotel which caused damage to the hotel lobby
but luckily no deaths were recorded, guests survived with minor injuries. (Coombs, 1995)
After five years of serious terror attacks in J.W. Marriott Indonesia which occurred in 2003 the
terrorists were again back to Indonesia, this time to explode two different properties of Marriott
in 2009. Both J.W. Marriott and Ritz Carlton in South Jakarta, Indonesia were targeted by the
suicide bombers with the time gap of minutes which killed around 10 people and wounded
another 50. (Coombs, 1995)

Wernick 2012 has stated the fact that terrorist incidents affects the firm both directly and
indirectly. As Marriott and Sheraton hotels are the hotels which faced most of the terror attacks
from 2000 to 2009. Resulting to which Marriott international hotels which was growing at an
alarming rate suddenly felt a standstill which was caused by the political issues of terrorism
starting from 9/11. The financial report of the company shows that the revenues generated
during the year 2000 was around $479 million which declined to $236 million in the year 2001
which was mainly due to the attacks of 9/11 which has shaken the whole US and travelers
around the world. As it was just the beginning, soon different luxury hotels became the main
targets of the terrorists mainly because hotels were easy access to everybody at that time, they
were the symbolic targets of western affluence & influence as the main attractions of these
were businessmen, foreigners and diplomats, moreover it was easier targets for them as internet
offered them with the pictures, panoramic videos & floor plans of the hotel they want to target.
Marriott hotels was targeted almost 10 times in 10 years which created a great fear in the
customers due to which the brand lost its trust from the customers, the revenues were not
showing good, even the employees were feeling unsafe as anything could happen anytime with
the situation prevailing during that time. The company was opening new projects during this
time but on the other side the revenues were declining. At this point of time the leaders of the
company realized that they are losing their roots due to political issues in the markets and need
to do something to gain the trust of their customers back in order to survive and grow. They
understood that terrorism was the main barrier in the growth of their company because of which
brand name was getting ruined and travelers were feeling unsafe to stay such properties. The
senior management of the company came to the decision that stopping the growth of the
company in other countries could even lead to total closure of the brand and therefore decided
to continue the growth and develop new strategies in order to tackle with the prevailing
situation in the political environment (Wernick and Von Glinow, 2012) (Marriott International
Inc,2009).

Marriott decided to fight back this situation by developing new strategies to get back the
employees interest and gain back the trust of customers to further go for development of the
brand. The marketer first analyzed the strategies which earlier failed to tackle the situation
prevailed and then identified the external and internal issues through PESTLE and SWOT
respectively so as to plan a strategy which could now help to survive in the market (Carlos,
2015). So, first the company developed the strategy for the betterment of the employees
because of the fact that if the employees stays satisfied thereby the guest. The company came
up with the strategy i.e. “Five-point Strategy to Attract and Retain Employees” to attract more
and more employees and retain them by providing them proper training. The five points stated
in this strategy are: (Iordache, 2018)

1. Get it right the first time,

 2. Money isn’t the only thing,
3. Create a caring workplace,
4. Promote from within, and
5. Build Your Brand. (Marriott International Inc, 2009)

Formulation of this strategy resulted in employee’s interest and loyalty towards the company.
Moving forward to rebuild the brand image of the company and gain back the trust of its guests
the hotel started personalized marketing with its customers, started to invest more in the
concept of CSR, and to promote the brand again & get back its falling demand they started
giving heavy discounts and loyalty programs to their guests. This was done just to achieve back
the trust of the customer but the main issue of terrorism which led to all this was still not
undertaken, so they started taking care of advanced security & safety features and came up with
new internal strategies to cope with such events in future. This took a while to reconstruct the
old image of Marriott which was the best choice of travelers for hotels but soon with time
around in 2010 with help of new strategies and policies marketers were able to achieve back
the trust of their customers and the revenues of the company were now showing better. As per
the fact “success is never final but success is fought for” and therefore, i.e. is the way the
marketers of the company helping to lead and shape the future of the Marriott (Culp, 2016)
(Carlos, 2015) (Philips, 2011).

As per the above case it is very clear that hospitality industry is considered a soft target for the
terrorists to attack because of easy access to many things and they can target more wealthy
people over there. This case is from the Marriott hotels which had grown enormously till 2000
but suddenly due to some political events the revenues of the company started declining and
was becoming an obstacle in the growth of the company. It can be rightly said that the crises
the company faced could have been avoided by proper strategic planning which could have
taken place earlier but it was not to late when the marketers realized this and identified the
reasons by using strategic tools PESTLE & SWOT and came up with new strategies to help
the company survive. It was only after the development of new strategies that the brand
survived and achieved the trust of the customers back. It was only after 2010 that the revenues
of the company came stable and started growing. Soon with the new CEO of the company Mr.
Arne Sorenson in 2012 the company saw an enormous growth and opened numerous hotels in
different countries and became the largest group of hotels in the world by acquiring Starwoods
hotels in 2016 (Sharma, 2016) (Danilin, 2014) (Carlos, 2015).

The strategy of the company have always remained to satisfy employees and customers for the
growth of the brand name. Marriott have always focused on the strategies like ansoff’s matrix,
alliance and mergers and acquisition for the growth of their brand across the world. But five
star category hotels served by the Marriott were the main attraction of the terrorists which acted
as their barrier for growth. Brand image of Marriott have always been best when it comes to
hospitality but since 2001 attacks people started losing trust not only from the Marriott hotels
but from Hospitality sector as a whole due to which hospitality and tourism sector was hit very
hard. One can only avoid political issues but cannot control them. As it is clear from the above
case that Marriott has been targeted several times in the past due to which the image of this
particular brand came up badly. Therefore, to overcome crises prevailing and improve the
brand image of the company, the management came to the decision to develop new strategies
according to the current scenario with the help of strategic tools. They used the PESTLE to
analyze the needs of external environment which stated the main political threat from i.e. from
terror attack. They also used SWOT to analyze the internal environment of the company which
gives the list of strengths, weakness, opportunity and threats to the company. These factors
helped the marketers to make new strategies to tackle with the issues during that time and as a
result of the proper implementation of the strategies the company was able to sustain in the
difficult times where the revenues of the company were going extremely low but because of
the proper planning of strategies Marriott has achieved the customers interest back and is the
largest hotel chain company in the world at present (Philips, 2011) (Wernick and Von Glinow,
2012) (Sharma, 2016).

The above study puts light on the importance of strategic planning in hospitality industry. The
author tries to explain the use of strategic analysis and strategic management tools in hospitality
industry by presenting a real life case of one of the most popular hotel brand i.e. Marriott
international which faced crisis due because of the political issues of terrorism which created
fear inside the travelers of not visiting hotels anymore especially 5 star category hotels because
these were then the main targets for them. This resulted in the declining revenues of the
company and barrier to the overall growth of the company. So the author wants to convey that
the strategies earlier developed by the hotel company were not up to the mark which could
have controlled the situations like this. Basically there is need for the marketers to update the
strategies time to time with changing environment to survive in these competitive market.
However, coming back to the case the management then realized the need to change the
strategies according to the analysis done through strategic tools. Finally, the new strategies
helped to overcome these political crisis and further helped the company to gain the consumer
interest. It is only because of proper implementation of strategic planning and effective &
efficient management that Marriott could have done so well after that today it is the leading
hospitality chain globally. Finally, to conclude it can be rightly said that strategic planning is
the backbone for the success of any organization as it is a roadmap for the organization as it
plans well in advance for its future. The strategic plans should keep on changing from time to
time with changing environment. Lastly, the success of the company completely depends on
how the marketers implement these strategies in the firm.