Salary and recruitment freeze at Marriott

Marriott hotels in the UK are implementing a recruitment and salary freeze after like-for-like sales at its five London sites fell by nearly 25%.

In the two months since 2 September like-for-like sales at Marriott's London hotels fell by 24.6%. In the provinces sales were up 3.9%, resulting in an overall decline in the core Marriott hotels of 4.7%.

As a result of the poor performance Alan Parker, managing director of Marriott hotels, said a 12-month salary freeze was being put in place for all workers at the Marriott hotels. Recruitment at the hotels has also been frozen.

Parker himself will not be receiving a pay rise when salaries are reviewed next May, nor will Whitbread's chairman Sir John Banham.

The pay freeze does not affect workers at Whitbread's budget hotel business, Travel Inn, which saw an increase in both like-for-like sales and operating profit.

Whitbread cited the decline in US travellers as a result of the events of 11 September and the already slowing economy as reasons for the decline at Marriott.

The building of a new Marriott hotel in Leicester has been put on hold, as has the conversion of part of Whitbread's old brewery in Chiswell Street, in the City of London, into Marriott executive apartments.

Four Travel Inn projects have also been put on hold.

Projects not affected by the deferral of capital expenditure include the conversion of the group's Swallow hotels to Marriott and the 600-bedroom Travel Inn at Heathrow airport.

Whitbread said it did not expect Marriott to reach the company target of a 5% increase in like-for-like sales by the year-end.