George Corbin, Senior Vice President, Digital accepting the Digital Edge 50 Award at the Sawgrass Marriott Golf Resort and Spa in Florida. — Photo by Marriott

Bethesda, Md. – Marriott International received the coveted Digital 50 Award from IDG Enterprise—the leading enterprise technology media company composed of CIO, Computerworld, CSO, InfoWorld, ITworld and Network World. The Digital EDGE 50 award honored Marriott's "Win the Stay" digital strategy, which is enabling the company to connect with next gen travelers on digital and mobile platforms throughout their travel journey.

"This award is recognition of the tremendous work by our teams to better serve the needs of millions of travelers worldwide," said George Corbin, Senior Vice President of Digital, Marriott International. "Mobile is our fastest-growing customer channel and we leverage that growth to transform the guest experience, making service at critical travel moments easier, more personalized, and more relevant to our guests at every step in their journey."

Today, Marriott offers guests a portfolio of mobile guest services through its dynamic app that features customized content for Marriott Rewards members when they are planning travel, getting ready to travel, the hotel stay and between stays. The company led the industry in rolling out mobile check-in, room ready alerts and mobile checkout three years ago. One year later, Marriott added Mobile Requests enabling guests to personalize their travel before, during and after their stays across more than 4,000 hotels worldwide. With Mobile Requests, guests can either choose from a drop-down menu of the most requested services or chat directly with hotel staff for special requests.

Other mobile features enable guests to use their smartphone as their room key and access their Netflix, Hulu, YouTube accounts and more on guest room televisions at select hotels. Coming soon, Marriott will add more personalized and informative content based on data and driven by beacons now installed at over 500 hotels. For example, members who typically workout while they travel would receive push notifications about the location, hours and services of the hotel fitness facility.

"The complexity and scale of the initiatives in the Digital Edge 50 show how quickly organizations are progressing to the next phase of digital transformation," said Anne McCrory, Digital Edge program chair and Group VP, Customer Experience and Operations, IDG Enterprise Events. "They are taking advantage of new capabilities, such as AI and deep machine learning, to enhance their mobile and analytics practices worldwide. They are finding dramatic results from the cloud, and serving customers in faster and more elegant ways. Their adoption of agile, extreme programming and completely reworked business processes show how even the most traditional businesses can go big with digital with the right vision and leadership."

The Digital Edge 50 Award is a recognized honor of digital innovation. Through digital technologies such as mobile, analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), virtual reality/augmented reality and cloud, award winners see business results that indicate a true "digital edge." Selected by a panel of industry experts and business and technology executives, winning applications are driving greater customer engagement, higher sales conversions and new products, as well as revenue and profit growth. Entries were judged by a panel of executive peers, including past winners, who evaluated projects on complexity, scale, business outcomes and innovation. Award recipients were honored at IDG's AGENDA 17 Conference on March 23, 2017.

About Marriott International, Inc. (NASDAQ: MAR) is based in Bethesda, Maryland, USA, with more than 6,000 properties in 30 leading hotel brands spanning 122 countries and territories. Marriott operates and franchises hotels and licenses vacation ownership resorts. The company also operates award-winning loyalty programs: Marriott Rewards®, which includes The Ritz-Carlton Rewards®, and Starwood Preferred Guest®. For more information, please visit our website at www.marriott.com, and for the latest company news, visit www.marriottnewscenter.com. Connect with us on Facebook and @MarriottIntl on Twitter and Instagram.

About Digital Edge 50 Award

The Digital Edge 50 Award is a recognized honor of digital innovation. Through digital technologies such as mobile, analytics, AI, the Internet of Things and cloud, award winners see business results that indicate a true "digital edge." Selected by a panel of industry experts and business and technology executives, winning applications are driving greater customer engagement, higher sales conversions and new products, as well as revenue and profit growth.

About CIO
CIO is the premier content and community resource for information technology executives and leaders. The CIO portfolio — CIO.com, CIO Forum on LinkedIn, events, strategic marketing services and research — provides business technology leaders with analysis, insight and an understanding of IT's role in achieving business goals. CIO is published by IDG Enterprise, a subsidiary of IDG. Company information is available at http://www.idgenterprise.com/. Follow CIO events on Twitter: @CIOevents #Agenda17

About Computerworld

Computerworld is the leading IT media brand helping senior IT, business decision-makers and key influencers navigate change with effective business strategy. Computerworld enables the IT value chain with unique editorial coverage from setting strategies to deriving value from core to edge technologies. IT solution providers can engage Computerworld's senior IT audience through www.computerworld.com, focused events, strategic marketing services and research. Computerworld is published by IDG Enterprise, a subsidiary of IDG. Company information is available at www.idgenterprise.com.

Follow Computerworld events on Twitter: @CWevents #Agenda17

About Marriott International

Marriott International, Inc. (NASDAQ: MAR) is based in Bethesda, Maryland, USA, and encompasses a portfolio of more than 8,100 properties under 30 leading brands spanning 139 countries and territories. Marriott operates and franchises hotels and licenses vacation ownership resorts all around the world. The company offers Marriott Bonvoy®, its highly awarded travel program. For more information, please visit our website, and for the latest company news, visit Marriott News Center. In addition, connect with us on Facebook and @MarriottIntl on Twitter and Instagram.

John Wolf
Vice President, Public Relations - Marriott
Marriott