The Next Gen Marriott Business Council Vietnam & Cambodia has been selected as the inaugural winner of the David S. Marriott Next Gen Business Council Award for their dedication to driving innovation, creating community and reinforcing Marriott’s core values to the next generation of leaders.

Marriott Business Councils have long been tasked with cultivating a culture that best reflects Marriott’s five core values: Put People First, Pursue Excellence, Embrace Change, Act With Integrity and Serve Our World.

Contextualizing the Marriott culture for younger generations is always a high priority for Business Councils. In 2023, the young leaders in the Vietnam & Cambodia Next Gen Business Council dedicated themselves to this priority in two countries that are still getting familiar with the Marriott culture. In just one year, the number of Marriott-branded hotels existing or in the development pipeline in Vietnam and Cambodia has soared by 400%.

The leaders of the Next Gen Marriott Business Council established a framework with four key pillars to align activities: Guests, Associates, Serve 360 and Innovation. Highlights include:

• Guests: To elevate the guest experience with specially curated recommendations, they developed a “Be a Local” campaign to help guests experience local culture, including making rice paper, participating in a local tea workshop or visiting a fish sauce factory tour.
• Associates: The Next Gen Business Council created a year-long calendar of activities that focused on associates’ mind, body and soul, including yoga, football, volleyball, painting, and beauty workshops. 
• Serve 360: Hotels within the Council hosted multiple volunteer activities to support the four coordinates of Marriott’s social responsibility platform. Activities included old battery collection, supporting Pride month activities, and organizing the Road to Give 2023 campaign — a Business Council and Next Gen Business Council combined effort to raise money for non-profit organizations.
• Innovation: Using a dynamic and engaging social media campaign, the Council created an online hub to gather young associates to inspire each other to grow their careers at Marriott. With accounts on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube, the Council launched a thriving #MarriottNextGen community — even their hashtag inspired the name of this new Award of Excellence.
   

To become a member of the Next Gen Business Council, General Managers in the Marriott Business Council nominate high-performing Millennial and Gen Z associates. These individuals champion the business council initiatives and facilitate communications within their properties. To ensure accountability, the Next Gen Business Council created a Balanced Scorecard to implement, track and manage goals. More than 405 activities were sponsored in 2023 and every hotel participated in supporting at least one of the pillars.