Marriott is inviting foodservice professionals, bartenders and entrepreneurs to create the lodging giant’s next generation of hotel restaurants via a new incubator program not unlike the popular TV show “Shark Tank.”
Contests pitch their ideas to a selection panel that will include restaurateurs from the areas where Marriott wants to showcase a new restaurant in its lodging properties. What the committee adjudges to be the strongest idea for a new restaurant or lounge will be green lighted for development.
Marriott will provide funding, the space and advice from in-house experts, and the person who offered the idea will run the place. After six months, the venture’s popularity and return on investment will be evaluated, presumably to determine if the operation will continue or possibly even duplicated elsewhere.
The process will be chronicled and shared with the public, though Marriott did not say where the updates would be aired.
The lodging giant said the technique will be used for a dozen hotels worldwide, starting with the Renaissance Phoenix Downtown and the J.W. Marriott in Shenzhen, China.
According to the company, the Canvas incubator program is part of a new strategy of localizing the restaurants in Marriott’s various lodging properties.
The company is one of the world’s largest innkeepers, with 4,100 properties in 79 countries and territories.
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