Hilton Worldwide and Marriott International addressed global business and travel industry leaders this week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to urge governments to move quickly to adopt “Smart Visa” policies, which stimulate global travel, create new jobs and spur economic development. The two companies represent more than 7,000 hotels in 90 countries, which include 600,000 employees at these owned, managed and franchised properties. They are working together with the World Economic Forum Governors for the aviation, travel and tourism industry to promote global action toward “Smart Visa” policies regionally by 2015 and globally by 2020.

Smart Visas refer to safe, secure and sustainable solutions that promote mobility, maximize the use of technology and expand programs that facilitate travel while removing process inefficiencies caused by arduous visa requirements. As a result of Smart Visa policies, more data is collected and shared across borders, creating enhanced security, efficiencies that reduce government spending and enhanced customer experience.

“In 2012, the U.N. World Tourism Organization reported that more than one billion people traveled outside their borders—a tremendous catalyst for global commerce and new jobs,” said Christopher J. Nassetta, president and CEO of Hilton Worldwide. “We are here at the World Economic Forum to tackle complex and challenging economic, social, environmental and political issues. Enabling greater international travel is the low-hanging fruit that can create significant economic growth and employment.”

“Smart governments are thinking about international travel and tourism as trade, and they are doing everything they can to remove barriers and be more strategic in addressing visas and other access issues that discourage people from traveling and doing business,” said Arne Sorenson, president and CEO of Marriott International. “While we recognize that security remains a top concern, we call on the world leaders here at Davos to be visionary about a future world of interconnected markets where moving travelers more easily will allow more people to see the world and result in two billion world travelers in the next decade.”

Many countries are recognizing the economic benefits of international travel and tourism and making secure and convenient travel a policy priority, including Turkey, which has more than doubled international visitation in a decade by providing visas on arrival; China, which has implemented visa-free travel for three days to Beijing for 45 countries; Russia, which is encouraging visa-free travel to and from the European Union; and Australia and the United Arab Emirates, which have been utilizing electronic visas, where the process is online and takes minutes, not days or weeks. The ASEAN nations are moving to a common regional visa to promote economic development.

Last year, President Obama announced the development of a national travel and tourism policy. Since then, the U.S. has made significant progress, with an increase in international arrivals as the visa waiver program was expanded to Taiwan and wait times for in-person interviews, most notably in China, Brazil and Mexico, were brought down to under one week. 

“We applaud those governments who are taking visionary approaches to facilitating travel, enhancing economies and providing employment opportunities worldwide," Nassetta and Sorenson said. "We view the private sector and Forum leaders as powerful partners to ensure progress continues so that global visa and entry policies are augmenting and enhancing the free-flow of goods, services, and people."

Globally, at nearly US$6 trillion in 2011, or 9.1 percent of total worldwide GDP, travel and tourism contributes more to world economies than some of the largest manufacturing sectors, including automotive and chemicals. The industry directly employs 98 million people, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council.

(Story materials from Marriott International.)

Marriott International plans to build the tallest stand-alone hotel in New York. The building will be 752 feet and nine inches high tall.

The Courtyard and Residence Inn Manhattan/Central Park will be a 68-story property housing two different hotels—the 378-room Courtyard by Marriott hotel and the 261-room Residence Inn by Marriott hotel—at 1717 Broadway (at 54th Street). The multi-million dollar project is scheduled to open in late 2013 and will be managed by Interstate Hotels and Resorts.

The hotels will share a main entrance and arrival lobby on 54th Street, with public areas for the Residence Inn on the 3rd floor and for the Courtyard on the 4th floor. Guest rooms for the Courtyard will be located on floors 6 through 32 and for Residence Inn on floors 36 through 64, with separate elevator banks to serve the guestrooms and public areas for each brand.

In addition to ground floor retail space, a leased restaurant will occupy the 2nd floor, and a 5th floor lounge and terrace with outdoor seating will overlook Broadway. Both hotels will share a fitness facility on the 34th floor.

Marriott International has been named the greenest hotel company in the United Kingdom by retaining its top 10 position in The Sunday Times "60 Best Green Companies in Britain" list for 2011.

Marriott, ranking ninth on the list, also won the award for "Best Employee Environmental Engagement" for the second year running, in addition to becoming the only hotel company in Britain to reach the top 10 ranking in the poll.

Marriott International branded hotels in the U.K. have invested considerably in their environmental programs and initiatives; achieving three prestigious certifications—the Carbon Trust Standard for all of the U.K. properties, the Audubon International Co-operative Sanctuary for 10 hotel and country clubs and Green Tourism Business awards for 25 hotels.

“This is a tremendous achievement as we strive to create a sustainable environment for both our guests and associates," said Amy McPherson, president and managing director for Marriott International in Europe. "I congratulate each of our hotels in the United Kingdom for their continued innovation and remarkable efforts to do business in an environmentally responsible manner and thank them for helping us to progress toward our goals.” 

Marriott topped the category of "Best for Employee Environmental Engagement" through an ongoing program of employee activities, offering Marriott associates the opportunity to give back to their local communities through clean-up and regeneration projects around the country. Associates also participate in environmental training and are actively encouraged to contribute their own energy saving ideas and participate in programs such as Cycle2Work.

In addition, Marriott hotel guests can participate in Marriott’s environmental practices by reusing bathroom towels during their stay, turning the lights off when leaving their room and recycling. Also, guests who wish to support rainforest preservation or offset their hotel have the opportunity to make a donation via their hotel bill to Marriott’s conservation project in the Juma Reserve, Amazonas, Brazil, to preserve 1.4 million acres of rainforest.

Marriott International is hoping a new game will help them find some job recruits. 

"My Marriott Hotel" can be found on the company's jobs and careers Facebook page. According to the Wall Street Journal, "Marriott has the challenge of attracting newcomers to around 50,000 hotel positions this year, many in emerging markets such as India and China, which don't have strong hospitality-industry traditions."

The game—available in five languages—focuses on running a hotel kitchen, and players are awarded points for happy customers and lose points for poor management. Marriott hopes that playing the game helps demystify what it's like to work in a hotel kitchen and help drive new job applicants. 

Please watch the video below for more information about the game.

If you're like me, a slow-loading website can feel like medieval torture. Yes, I still remember the days of dial-up, but we should be past that by now. If your site doesn't load quickly, then I'm moving on.

In fact, USA Today reports that slow load times can account for big monetary loses. 

"Hotel giant Marriott, which Compuware Gomez ranks as the top-performing hotel booking site, believes it could lose nearly US$800,000 every hour its website isn't running, says George Corbin, the company's vice president of e-commerce strategy," Gary Stoller wrote for the paper.  

And when it comes to shopping online, customers expect websites to load in two seconds or less, with 40 percent saying they'll leave a page that takes longer than three seconds to appear. 

According to Compuware Gomez's study, Hotels.com has the fastest website for customer transactions, and Frontier Airlines has the slowest. 

"It took an average of four seconds for the Hotels.com website to complete the steps before a customer finalizes a booking, and more than 35 seconds for Frontier's website to do that for a ticket purchase," Stoller wrote. "Those times exclude the time a consumer spends looking at a website and typing in information."

For more of the story, please read "Which Travel Websites are the Fastest?".