Nouveau blogue corporatif: celui de la chaîne d'hôtels Marriott

Message aux entrepreneurs québécois: Vous devriez avoir un blogue. Bill Marriott, pdg de la chaîne d'hôtels du même nom, l'a compris. Il a créé le sien.

Quelques extraits de son premier billet:

I'm venturing into uncharted territory as I launch this blog. A year ago, I didn't even know what a blog was -- until my Communications team began telling me about all the blog traffic on travel and tourism. Now I know this is where the action is if you want to talk to your customers directly -- and hear back from them. Soon we'll add an audio version of the blog. That's how I'm most comfortable: telling stories and listening.(...)

Truth be told, I'm not very good with computers (...) Ten years ago when my people first started talking about selling room reservations over the internet, I was a skeptic. Today Marriott.com is not only the biggest website in the hotel industry, it's also our fastest growing reservations channel. I'm a convert! (...)

Blogging will allow me to do what I've been doing for years -- on a global scale. Talking to the customer comes easily to me. I visit 250 hotels around the world every year. This year I'll be traveling once again to China where we have 27 hotels, 16 under construction and many more in our development pipeline. At every hotel, I talk to associates, from housekeepers to general managers, to get their feedback. I call it "management by walking around." Like my parents, I value the input from our associates at all levels. I make lots of notes -- and my best ideas almost always come from our people in the field. (...)

Bottom line, I believe in communicating with the customer, and the internet gives me a whole new way of doing that on a global scale. I'd rather engage directly in dialogue with you because that's how we learn and grow as a company.

So tell me what you think, and together we'll keep Marriott on the Move!

Commentaire: Un ton personnel, un invitation à dialoguer. La lecture des commentaires est aussi très intéressante. Vraiment, c'est très bien fait.

Extraits de son troisième billet:

Tomorrow, January 23rd, the United States Government implements new passport requirements, part of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, or what we call WHTI. It means that everybody traveling by air or sea between the United States, Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean, and Bermuda must have a valid passport to enter or re-enter the United States.

Now certainly no industry is more aware of the incredible importance of security than the travel and tourism industry. We were brought to our knees by the terrorist attacks of 9/11. But we came back because people were determined to travel and not let the terrorists win. Our company lost two of our associates and our Marriott World Trade Center hotel went down, so we really do understand the importance of getting security right.

But getting security right doesn't mean we close our borders. I'm afraid, if it's not properly implemented and communicated, that WHTI could have a serious negative impact on legitimate commerce and tourism, as well as our diplomatic relationships with our two largest trading partners, Canada and Mexico.

Commentaire: Cette fois-ci, en plus d'avoir un élément de personnalité (Our company lost two of our associates and our Marriott World Trade Center hotel went down), M. Marriott se positionne dans un dossier politique. Wow. Félicitations.

Liens: Uncharted Territory (le premier billet), Marriott on the move, le blogue. C'est dans ce billet sur le blogue de Maggie Fox que j'ai trouvé l'info.