How Facilities Excellence is Marriott’s Secret to Safeguarding Brand Integrity

For a global hospitality leader like Marriott, facilities management isn’t just about ticking boxes on a compliance checklist. It’s the quiet backbone of brand integrity, carried out at scale. Every fire safety check, every water flush, every logbook signature is a daily promise to guests, employees, and owners alike. And in an industry wrestling with slipping guest satisfaction, the relentless commitment to operational excellence has become one of Marriott’s sharpest differentiators.

We spoke with Nicholas Woollen, Marriott International’s Vice President of Engineering & Facilities Operations – US & Canada. Since 2017, he's overseen everything from HVAC reliability to elevator safety and energy efficiency, ensuring the brand’s standards are met consistently across its sprawling portfolio. With priorities constantly colliding, his compass is simple: every decision begins with a 360-degree view of risk.

• Beyond baseline compliance: Protecting the brand means moving beyond baseline compliance to confront the real-world impact of operational failures, Woollen explains. "The first thing is to identify what brings the greatest risk. That gives us the greatest priority. Brand integrity and the safety of guests and associates always come first. From there, it becomes operational, which gets into productivity, profitability, and ensuring a comfortable stay by the guest."

• A matter of trust: For Woollen, the approach transforms the promise of a safe "home away from home" into reality. "For example, we spend a tremendous amount of time focusing on water safety, just as we do with fire life safety. Across the globe, there’s been an increase in Legionella events, some with tragic outcomes. All it takes is just a couple of high-profile incidents to erode a customer’s perception that guest well-being and safety are paramount."

To maintain these standards across Marriott's immense portfolio, Woollen's strategy combines a cutting-edge platform for visibility into maintenance activities with a "culture of confidence," comprising confidence in their work's impact, courage to challenge, ask questions, and embrace change, and credibility to manage their work with competency and integrity.

• No more pencil whipping: "We have a platform that tracks all the work across our managed portfolio: who does it, when, and how long it takes. But technology is only half the story. We promote a culture of confidence by making it clear that accuracy matters more than appearances. That means reporting honestly, even if a task wasn't completed. Otherwise, you end up with 'pencil whipping,' or falsified documents. Our standard is simple: do the right thing, every time."

• One brand, two playbooks: For the franchise community, that same standard is upheld through rigorous brand standards audits. "The goal is not to co-manage with owners and other operators, but to go in and verify that our brand requirements are being met." At Marriott, managed assets are overseen directly, while franchise properties are held accountable through regular audits, he explains.

In Woollen’s view, fostering such a culture calls for counter-intuitive leadership that actively rewards transparency. He believes the key is to publicly praise the act of truthful reporting, reinforcing that the integrity of the system is more important than any single failure.

• Rewarding the truth: "Our culture of confidence comes from celebrating those individuals who dare to stand up and report when they weren’t able to accomplish a task. It’s about recognizing them amongst their peers and thanking them for their honesty and courage, because the reputation, brand integrity, and safety of our guests and associates are all dependent on us doing our work accurately."

The philosophy proved especially valuable during the COVID-19 pandemic, when empty buildings created a major water safety challenge. To Woollen's delight, the solution emerged directly from the field, a product of the very culture he works so hard to cultivate.

• Wisdom from the field: "Sometimes the best ideas come from the field. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, we knew we needed to keep water flowing through our empty hotels. At first, the plan was to flush entire buildings every two weeks. But field teams spoke up and suggested alternating floors instead, which maintained a continuous flow. We put the new process in place, and it kept our buildings safe, ensuring guests weren’t put at risk."

For Woollen, facilities management is the daily execution of Marriott’s brand promise. It is the consistent work that safeguards trust every time a guest checks in, regardless of where they are in the world. Looking ahead, he sees sustainable success depending on investment in two key areas: people and technology.

"The first opportunity is people. How do we attract, retain, and nurture our associates? How do we develop them to become the next leaders, and how do we educate and upskill them for the buildings of tomorrow?" For Woollen, that means preparing teams with the skills needed to manage increasingly complex systems and technologies while keeping guest safety and brand integrity at the center. Here, he points to AI, digital twinning, and fault detection as the next frontier. "We’re just beginning to scratch the surface of how to operate our buildings as efficiently as possible."