More

    Starwood Hotels

    Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. history, profile and corporate video

     Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. owns and operates hotels and resorts. It provides services to the business and leisure travelers worldwide. Starwood Hotels conducts hotel and leisure business both directly and through its subsidiaries. The company operates through following segments: Hotels and Vacation Ownership and Residential. The Hotel segment generally represents a worldwide network of owned, leased and consolidated joint venture hotels and resorts operated primarily under the company’s proprietary brand names including St. Regis, The Luxury Collection, Sheraton, Westin, W, Le Meridien, Four Points by Sheraton, Aloft and Element as well as hotels and resorts which are managed or franchised under these brand names in exchange for fees. The Vacation Ownership and Residential segment includes the development, ownership and operation of vacation ownership resorts, marketing and selling VOIs, providing financing to customers who purchase such interests, licensing fees from branded condominiums and residences and the sale of residential units. The company was founded in 1969 and is headquartered in Stamford, CT.

    “Starwood Hotels History

    Starwood Hotels and Resorts was originally formed by the real estate investment firm Starwood Capital to take advantage of a tax break; at the time the company was known as Starwood Lodging. Initially, Starwood Lodging owned a number of hotels throughout North America, all under different brand names. The Westin Hotel Company was purchased in 1994 from Aoki Corporation of Japan. Starwood acquired the Sheraton, Four Points by Sheraton, and The Luxury Collection brands from ITT Sheraton in 1998.

    In 1999, Starwood launched their “W” Hotels brand. In September 2005, Starwood announced the launch of Aloft, a new hotel brand based on W. Aloft Hotels catered toward business travelers. In 2005, Starwood purchased the Le Méridien brand.

    In 2004, Starwood’s founder and CEO Barry Sternlicht stepped down as CEO to focus his attention on his other firm, Starwood Capital. He remained on the Board of Directors until 2005. He was succeeded as CEO by Steven J. Heyer, and Starwood began selling a number of its company-owned hotels, instead focusing on becoming a management company and franchiser for its current and future hotel brands. In April 2007, Steven J. Heyer left the company on the request of the Board of Directors because of an issue with Heyer’s management style and after allegations of personal misconduct. Chairman of the Board Bruce Duncan served as interim CEO until September 2007, when the company announced Heyer’s successor, Frits van Paasschen.

    Starwood has customer contact centers (CCC) in nine locations: Wichita, Kansas; Austin, Texas; Fall River, Massachusetts; St Thomas, Ontario; Cork, Ireland; Singapore; Tokyo,Japan; Guangzhou, China; and Gurgaon, India.

    In late May 2014 reports surfaced that the company had recently made a takeover bid for InterContinental Hotels Group worth $10 billion, which neither company confirmed or denied.”

    *Information from Forbes.com and Wikipedia.org

    **Video published on YouTube by “Starwood Vids

    Advertisment

    Advertisment

    Related videos

    Advertisment

    Advertisment