Press Release

Marriott Resorts Hawaii Receives Top Marketing Recognition

Honored as AMA Hawaii's Marketer of the Year for Innovative Marketing

Honolulu – April 20, 2010 –  Marriott Resorts Hawaii (MRH) has been recognized by the American Marketing Association (AMA) Hawaii Chapter as the 33rd Marketer of the Year at its annual awards luncheon on April 13, 2010. MRH was singled out for its successful innovative marketing efforts in 2009 with the Spirit of Aloha Tour in the U.S. and Japan and the "Tweet Yourself to Hawaii" social media campaign.

Accepting the award on behalf of MRH was Rodney Ito, area director of operations, Marriott International – North Asia, Hawaii and South Pacific. Ito credited Marriott's partners Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau, Hawaiian Airlines, Polynesian Cultural Center, Hawaii Tourism Authority Japan and Japan Airlines for each of their sponsorships. "Without them, we could not have marketed Hawaii as a great destination for leisure and group meetings," said Ito.

"A good marketing plan proved to be worth its weight in gold last year," said American Marketing Association Hawaii Chapter President Frank Haas. "In a year when mere survival was too often the goal for many businesses and organizations, those with sound and well-implemented marketing campaigns emerged from 2009 as some of Hawaii's top successes stories."

Hawaii's Governor Linda Lingle and Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann joined the business community in honoring Marriott Resorts Hawaii. Hannemann played an important role on Marriott's Spirit of Aloha Tour, meeting up with them in Washington D.C. in February 2009.

About Marriott's Spirit of Aloha Tour
Marriott Resorts Hawaii devised a mobile marketing plan that would blitz key U.S. markets with personal sales calls to agents and wholesalers while sending positive messages and images of Hawaii and Marriott.

Christened "Marriott's Spirit of Aloha Tour," the campaign was designed to create a media-hyped, buzz-generating promotional bus tour, delivering sunny Hawaiian smiles and island-style aloha to retail agents, major wholesalers, media, and consumers. It began as a month-long, eight-city West Coast promotion that visited San Diego, Los Angeles, Orange County, San Jose, San Francisco, Sacramento, Portland, and Seattle. The tour was so successful that it was extended to include Minneapolis, Chicago, New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. In total, the bus tour ran from January 12 to February 26, 2009 and traveled 6,775 miles cross-country. Aboard the bus was a rotation of Marriott hotel general managers and sales directors and Hawaii entertainers from Polynesian Cultural Center. Camile Velasco, a finalist from Season Three of American Idol from Maui, served as the tour's Ambassador of Aloha.

With the success of the Mainland tour, MRH launched a similar effort in Japan, visiting Nagoya, Osaka and Tokyo in the fall, with sumo legend Konishiki joining the team.

About Tweet Yourself to Hawaii Social Media Campaign
In 2009, Marriott Resorts Hawaii came up with a clever way to use social media to market both the destination and Marriott's hotels without spending a lot of money. The company recognized social media as an arena with a lot of word-of-mouth potential to reach consumers.

To cut through the noise and stand out in the ever-growing social media crowd, Marriott Resorts Hawaii created a Twitter-focused marketing campaign designed to get people tweeting about @MarriottHawaii. Called the "Tweet Yourself to Hawaii" sweepstakes, the contest gave away 25 all-expenses paid trips for two to Hawaii from the U.S. mainland between August and October 2009. MRH held tweetups in Waikiki, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle to engage the social media communities there and encourage participation.

Following the popular Twitter contest, Marriott Resorts Hawaii kept the social media "buzz" alive with a video contest that gave away an even more impressive prize – a trip to Hawaii for 12. The video contest ran from mid-October to mid-December 2009 and received 130 entries. The top videos were then posted on a special web site – www.marriotthawaiitweets.com – for the public to vote for their favorite. In the end, Joe Maziarski of New Jersey won for his video titled "Nature Man," receiving a Hawaiian vacation for him and 11 friends including seven nights at up to two Marriott resorts in Hawaii and roundtrip airfare, courtesy of Hawaiian Airlines.

For more about Marriott Resorts Hawaii, visit www.marriotthawaii.com

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Editor's Note: High-resolution images of the AMA Hawaii awards, the Spirit of Aloha Tour and the Tweet Yourself to Hawaii campaign are available upon request.

For More Information, Contact:

Bernie Caalim or Noreen Kam
McNeil Wilson Communications
1003 Bishop Street, 9th Floor
Honolulu, HI 96813
Phone: (808) 531-0244
Fax: (808) 521-7163
Email: bernie.caalim@mwc-anthology.com or noreen.kam@mwc-anthology.com

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