If you want to know about the hotel industry, there are few people better to ask than the just retired CEO of Marriott hotels, Bill Marriott. He revealed the following to the Economist about how the industry has changed since he started in 1957:

• The lobby has become the place to be. Modern hotel guests go to their rooms, dump their stuff and return downstairs.
• Despite this people want more space in their room. Mostly work is done from the bed with a laptop, so desks have shrunk in order to make space. Big closets have also gone as guests don’t bother to pack much…or unpack.
• The hotel has become increasingly a place to ‘entertain and be entertained’. This means a more boutique style downstairs.
• Bill offers two pieces of advice to the modern entrepreneur. The first is that business today is all about focus and specialism. If you want Wall Street to become interested, make your business easy to understand.
• The second is perhaps counter-cultural. Instead of customer focus, Bill invests in employees. Take care of them, he says, and they will take care of the customer. And then you get returning clients.

For more about what Bill considers his greatest mistake and his thoughts on opening a low-budget hotel, click over here

Source: The Economist