Marriott International

Marriott International is a multinational hospitality company with a large portfolio of hotels and lodges. Marriott's headquarters are located in Bethesda, Maryland. Marriott is the largest hotel chain in the world, with over 6,500 different properties throughout 127 different countries. That amounts to 1.2 million rooms with over 190,000 currently in development. As of 2017, Marriott had over 177,000 employees across the world.

The company was founded by J. Willard Marriott in 1927. It began as a root beer stand, which he opened with his wife Alice Sheets Marriott. Marriott believed that the warm climate of Washington required a place to get a "cool drink."

The first Marriott hotel opened in 1957, and was called the Twin Bridges Marriott Motor Hotel. It was located in Arlington, Virginia, as was the second hotel that the couple opened.
The business became Marriott International, when in 1993 the company split in two - becoming Marriott International and Marriott Corporation. The company would go on to be the first to offer guests the option to book rooms in advance online.

Marriott International reported a 2017 revenue of $22.894 billion USD and net profit of $1.372 billion USD. Marriott International was rated as the 33rd best company to work for by Fortune's 100 Best Companies to Work For list. This was in 2017, which was the 20th time the company had appeared on the list.