The Last Frontier of Emotional Engagement: F+B

Last year, we held an annual planning meeting with the global Food + Beverage team at our company headquarters. To kick things off, we asked one warm-up / soft ball question, “what’s the best meal you’ve ever had?” Keep in mind, this is a group of seasoned restaurant and culinary professionals who have created and eaten some pretty amazing food all over the world. I was prepared to be impressed.

Think about it. How would you answer the question?

Combing through hundreds of memories, I landed on a sweltering afternoon years ago when I enjoyed freshly-caught red-bellied piranha roasted over an open fire in the jungles outside of Manaus, Brazil. The hunger, remote location, and delectable flavors imprinted me. It was a taste of salvation shared among friends I will never forget.

As we worked the room that day, the interesting thing was, EVERYONE described very personal, emotional connections: a simple dinner home, a cookout with friends and family, the smell of the ocean while eating fresh, hand-caught seafood, discovering a never-before-tried dumpling at a local restaurant in mainland China. The examples were all about the experience as much as the food. What I remind people every day, is that food and beverage is one of the most emotional, human, exceptionally personal parts of the hotel experience. It's these F+B experiences which are the heart of travel, allowing us to leave a place with more than we came.

When I moved back to the Food + Beverage team last year, I had just come off the heels of leading Marriott’s Insight, Strategy, and Innovation group, where we set out to create an innovation movement at the most amazing hotel company in the world. Today, the Food + Beverage team and I, alongside our extended F+B team members across the globe, are on a mission to create an F+B movement across our company, one that recognizes F+B as the heart of our company.

At Marriott, our culture has always been humble. As the world's largest operator of hotel-based restaurants and bars, we already have some pretty unbelievable restaurants and bars in our portfolio – for singular dining experiences, there’s the three Michelin star Aqua at The Ritz-Carlton, Wolfsburg, the fresh seafood served shore-side at Fish at Le Meridien Dubai Seyahi Beach Resort & Marina, cool cocktails at the speakeasy-style Melinda’s Alley at Renaissance Phoenix, delicious Brazilian dishes at Terraco Jardins at the Renaissance Sao Paulo, and the St. Regis Bloody Mary sprinkled with Kala Namak salt served by the private reef at the St. Regis Maldives. These experiences are each so different and special. I could go on and on.

As part of our F+B movement, we are breaking paradigms. In his latest blog, Mr. Marriott writes about how proud he is of Marriott International’s women chefs, as well as the launch of the Global Women’s Chef Council, a new program designed to create inspirational mentoring initiatives for women chefs. The program is one of many we’re passionate about – check out Mr. Marriott’s blog here - which recognizes the importance of artisanship at Marriott.

Our ambition is for our hotels to become places you think of not only when staying as a guest on travel. We want to be the place you seek out when you are in the neighborhood by your home AND on your travels when you are away. To fulfill this ambition requires both the power of big (global presence / reach / diversity across 127 countries) and the power of small (continually testing ourselves / adapting / learning), allowing us to provide personalized, localized, always emotional, and ultimately unforgettable F+B experiences. Our artisans across the world will help us achieve this.

We look forward to bringing you along with us on our journey as we continue our movement towards ever-evolving exceptional experiences in food and beverage. More to come!

All the best,

Matthew Von Ertfelda

To learn more about F+B and amazing F+B career opportunities across Marriott: www.marriott.com/artisancareers