Marriott International, Inc. (NYSE:MAR) announced today that its chairman and CEO, J.W. “Bill” Marriott, Jr., has received the 2002 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Hospitality Industry Diversity Institute (HIDI) for his exemplary commitment to recognizing and including women, minorities and people with disabilities in the hospitality industry.
Drs. Faye Hall Jackson and Agnes DeFranco, co-directors of the Hospitality Industry Diversity Institute at the University of Houston’s Conrad N. Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management, presented the award to Mr. Marriott during the company’s worldwide conference for general managers of full-service hotels at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, D.C.

“We are honored to recognize Bill Marriott’s long-standing leadership toward advancing the cause of diversity in the hospitality industry,” Dr. Jackson said. “Diversity at Marriott is a deeply-rooted value that has extended far beyond the company’s associates to include Marriott’s suppliers, customers, owners and franchisees.”
“We have made an ongoing commitment to diversity with the goal of setting the industry standard,” Mr. Marriott said. “Receiving the HIDI award is truly an honor for me and a great acknowledgment of our company’s efforts.”
Marriott is an industry leader in several diversity-related areas, including board membership, supplier diversity, franchising and the hiring, retention and promotion of minorities. In 2003, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) ranked Marriott number one in the organization’s annual lodging industry report card. Marriott out-scored ten other lodging chains and is the only hotel company to top the list more than once.
In 2002, Marriott’s Supplier Diversity program reported that the company spent more than $150 million, or 5.5 percent of total procurement, with minority and women business entrepreneurs. Spending with African-American-owned companies has risen 30 percent to $26 million since 2000. As of 2002, the Marriott International franchise network included 160 properties owned by African-Americans, Asians, Hispanics and women. The company more than doubled the number of women- and minority-owned franchisees in the past four years.

Marriott partners with a variety of minority business organizations, including the National Minority Supplier Development Council and the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and their local affiliates, to support minority businesses development. The company has relationships with many other organizations—including the National Black MBA Association and the National Society of Hispanic MBAs—to identify new executive talent. In 2003, Marriott International again was named to two of Fortune’s top lists: “Best Companies To Work For” and “Best Companies for Minorities.” Marriott also received the 2002 Catalyst Award for the advancement of women in the workplace and was named by Latina Style as one of the “Best Places For Latinas To Work For in the United States.”
——-