Hotels and the Rise of Sports-Related Travel: Julius Robinson on Marriott’s NCAA Partnership and Industry Trends

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The Women’s Final Four in Minneapolis was the biggest gathering in women’s college basketball since the pandemic began more than two years ago. And in the light of last year’s NCAA gender equity report, all eyes were on the destination to make sure that women’s sports were celebrated not only on the court and in the Target Center, but that the experience extended beyond the arena to every detail including how the city and NCAA partners treated the event — including where people stayed during the weekend.

Julius Robinson, the chief sales and marketing officer, U.S. and Canada, for Marriott, joined SportsTravel managing editor Matt Traub on location in Minneapolis to discuss how Marriott plans for big events like the Women’s Final Four, what it’s like working with the NCAA as its official hotel partner, how important sports-related travel has been to Marriott’s business the past two years, sports tourism trends the hotel chain has seen lately and what the one big sports event he still would like to check off his bucket list.

Among the topics featured in this episode:

• How long it takes for Marriott to work with the NCAA on the Women’s Final Four (2:08)
• The advantages that Marriott gets as the official host partner of the NCAA (3:00)
• The importance of the NCAA’s partnership to Marriott for future national championships (3:57)
• Working with the NCAA on COVID-related health and safety protocols (5:04)
• Partnering local activations with host destinations such as Minneapolis (6:06)
• Making sure the host experience for the Women’s Final Four was equitable to the experiences in New Orleans (7:08)
• Using the attention in Minneapolis to promote Marriott’s support of women’s sports initiatives (8:00)
• Leveraging the NCAA partnership to grow Marriott’s business beyond sporting events (8:42)
• The importance of sports-related travel to Marriott’s bottom line (10:06)
• How the return of sports-related travel in the past year-plus has helped Marriott (11:26)
• Preparing respective hotel staffs ahead of major events (12:36)
• Marriott’s role during Final Four weekends to help the NCAA and host destinations plan for the weekend (14:19)
• How sports-related travel has changed Marriott’s approach to the industry (15:13)
• His favorite sporting event to attend and why (17:16)
• The biggest remaining sports event on his bucket list (18:11)

Related Video — Marriott International: Evolving to Meet Planners’ Needs

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