Director of Sales and Marketing Cato van den Bent and Marketing Executive Renée van der Toorn
BUILDING A BETTER WORLD TOGETHER:
“it’s important to help out wherever you can”
R C D
29 The Rotterdam Marriott Hotel belongs to the vast Marriott International chain. As just one of 7,000+ hotels, its societal Sales and Marketing Cato van den Bent and Marketing Executive Renée van der Toorn to learn about the many projects to which Rotterdam Marriott Hotel is contributing, and why this is so important. The team are tackling a variety of initiatives at the Marriott International, Benelux and Rotterdam levels to make a difference, especially in societal and climate-related issues.
One initiative at the Marriott International level is ‘Serve
Foundation. I know from past jobs at these institutions how
360’, a platform founded on four pillars and designed to help
big the impact is behind the screens and how important it is
make the world a little better. Cato explains: “Four Pillars
to help out wherever you can.” The Sophia Children’s Hospital
Serve 360 consists of: Nurture (Nurture Our World), Empower
campaign contributes to projects to enable innovations in
(Empower Through Opportunity), Sustain (Sustain Respon-
healthcare, so that the Sophia retains a leading position as
sible Operations), and lastly Welcome (Welcome all and ad-
a children’s hospital in Europe. “By promoting this campaign
vance Human Rights). In Rotterdam, we used to work with
in our hotel, we’re also trying to create awareness among our
Too Good To Go, for example, to stop food waste. We’re also
guests, and even that can make a difference.”
ket and show them some tricks of the hotel trade.” Beyond
MAKE A GREEN CHOICE
that, Marriott Rotterdam served hamburgers to homeless
In addition to social engagement, the team is also working
people on ‘Spirit to Serve Day’, donated linen packages to the
on ways to raise awareness among its hotel guests about
Salvation Army and Marriott Benelux Business Council partic-
sustainable choices. Cato: “At the international level, we’ve
ipates to the success of the Kids Olympics.
set sustainability targets that each hotel has to meet, to
MAKING A DIFFERENCE
eliminate single-use shower toiletry bottles with larger, pump-topped bottles. We offer our guests a choice of not
Alongside large-scale initiatives, Renée emphasizes that it’s
having their towels laundered daily and they can separate
also very important for them as a leading hotel to play an ac-
their own plastic waste.” Each of these ideas in turn aligns
tive role in the community. “We are closely involved with the
with the vision of working as part of a larger whole to help
Sophia Children’s Hospital and the Giovanni van Bronckhorst
achieve the objectives.
TEXT Céline Boute
doing projects with JINC to introduce youth to the jobs mar-
M A G A Z I N E
PHOTOGRAPHY Roxanne Wilm
impact may seem small, but in fact its global impact is tremendous as part of that larger whole. We caught up with Director of
