Inside Marriott's HQ

WASHINGTON, DC—On May 13 and 14, we're holding our third annual Bisnow Lodging Investment Summit (BLIS) in the nation's capital. Marriott chief development officer Noah Silverman (whose company will host at its new Marriott Marquis) joins 40 other hospitality experts. Today, we bring you a tour of the hotel giant's Bethesda, Md. HQ. (When you tour the Ben & Jerry's factory, you get free ice cream; so here, we were hoping for a continental breakfast.)

Inside the nearly 1M SF complex, Marriott is buying into the paradigm shift in innovative office space. We snapped Noah's colleague Jim Young, who's VP of facilities, services, and real estate, with colleagues Daniella Mizrahi and Karim Khalifa. The property is as open as possible to encourage collaboration among the complex's 3,000 employees. "Innovation doesn't happen when you're all by yourself," says Jim.

Changes included a massive re-do of the 13k SF cafeteria. There's collaborative space in there, too. (We hope the result of meetings in the cafeteria will be five-star hotel restaurants adding Pizza Fridays.) Jim says team meetings, events, and social gatherings all take place down here, and eventually 200 seats will be placed outside, in accordance with CEO Arne Sorenson's love of the outdoors. The idea is to create more "collisions," or random but productive encounters between employees.

In the test room in one of the property's two huge basements, Jim shows us new wallpaper for Marriott's Courtyard brand. All of the firm's brands have test rooms here with the most up-to-date designs for franchisees and investors to check out. Courtyard, for example, is going for a "city look" with newer rooms, he says. Every nook and cranny of a Marriott-branded room is worked out down here, from carpets to showers to light fixtures.

Be among the first to see what Marriott's minds came up with at BLIS, the inaugural event at the new Marriott Marquis. It's where you'll join hundreds of top national players to hear from experts like Trump Hotel Collection COO Jim Petrus and Thayer Lodging Group founder Fred Malek, who'll be keynoting, with a special appearance by Fox and Friends' Tucker Carlson. And since DC is the hotel investment capital of the world, use BLIS 2014 as an opportunity to call on companies like Marriott, Thayer, DiamondRock, LaSalle, Interstate, and more. (With so many based here, you'll probably need to visit DC soon anyway.) Click here to see the full roster of speakers and to sign up today!