How it started
Foundation and early years
The Marriott hotel chain began when the Hot Shoppes, Inc. restaurant company decided to diversify into hotels. Its first hotel opened in 1957 in Virginia, the Marriott Motor Hotel, adjacent to The Pentagon and Washington National Airport. The company's second hotel was the nearby Marriott Key Bridge Motor Hotel, which opened in 1959. This was soon followed by Marriott Motor Hotels in Dallas in 1960, Philadelphia in 1961, Atlanta in 1965, and Saddle Brook, New Jersey in 1966.
Hot Shoppes, Inc. was renamed the Marriott Corporation in 1967, by which point it was operating 8 hotels.
In 1967, Marriott acquired its first resort hotel, the historic Camelback Inn in Arizona, United States. In 1969, the Paraiso Marriott, the first international Marriott Hotel, opened in Acapulco, Mexico. That same year, Marriott bought the famed Essex House overlooking Central Park in New York City.
In 1972, the Marriott lodging division acquired the Greek-based Sun Line cruise line, which it owned until 1987.
In 1975, Marriott Hotels & Resorts expanded to Europe, with the opening of the Amsterdam Marriott. In 1980, Marriott opened its first hotel in the Middle East, the Riyadh Marriott, in Saudi Arabia. The Cairo Marriott followed in 1981, the chain's first hotel in Africa.
From Wikipedia’s article on Marriott Hotels & Resorts, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2