Presented by Ora Solomon at LOCALIZE NYC, hosted by Smartling on Wednesday, January 25th.

1. STARWOOD
TRANSLATION
ROI MODELORA SOLOMON – DIRECTOR, GLOBALIZATION
©2015 Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. All Rights Reserved. For internal use only. CONFIDENTIAL & PROPRIETARY – May not be reproduced, disclosed or distributed without the express written permission of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc.

2. WHAT IS STARWOOD?STARWOOD

3. PRESENCE
1,500 hotels globally
50% outside the US

4. THE SITUATION

5. LANGUAGE SUPPORT
WEBSITES
SPG in 8 additional languages
Arabic, Traditional Chinese, Korean, Polish,
Turkish, Dutch, Thai, Bahasa Indonesian
Property content
Based on data driven approach and ROI
11 brands in 8 languages
French, German, Spanish, Japanese, Italian,
Simplified Chinese, Russian, Portuguese
APP
3 languages on iOS and Android
Chinese (S), Spanish, Japanese

6. DIFFERENT COVERAGE BY LANGUAGE
Starwoodhotels.com
and Brand.com
available in 8 languages
SPG.com available in 16
languages

7. COVERAGE FOR PROPERTY CONTENT
26914222731433468
237
452
0
500
1,000
1,500
Portuguese
Sim.Chinese
Japanese
ALL
Spanish
ALL
French
ALL
German
ALL
Properties Translated in 2015
Polish
Turkish
Dutch
Indonesian
Thai
Arabic
Trad.Chinese
Korean
Italian
Russian
Core Secondary Tertiary

8. DO WE HAVE THE RIGHT COVERAGE?
» How many Japanese travelers visit
hotels in Missouri?
» Should we increase coverage for
languages like Italian and Dutch?
Are we maximizing the value of our
translation spend?

9. CORE LANGUAGES ARE TRANSLATED
WORLDWIDE REGARDLESS OF REVENUE
9
e.g., Aloft Charlotte Uptown in Japanese
-- even though all 9 Charlotte properties receive less
than $20K of Japanese revenue annually
e.g., Four Points St. Louis in French
-- even though all 6 St. Louis properties combined
receive less than $5k of French revenue annually

10. SECONDARY LANGUAGES ARE SPOTTY
EVEN IN MAJOR OUTBOUND MARKETS
10
e.g., many Italians book NYC
properties each year

11. OUR TRANSLATION MODEL NEEDS TO
BE SCALABLE
Globalization –
Non-English revenue share
is growing, and competitors
are investing to win…
Starwood Growth –
Virtually all our brands are
tasked with tremendous
footprint growth…

12. THE ACTION

13. MOVE TO A DATA-DRIVEN APPROACH
CREATED MODEL THAT WEIGHS REVENUE VS. FULL ONGOING
COST OF TRANSLATION AT THE MARKET LEVEL (E.G., FRENCH
IN KANSAS CITY, MO)
ROOTS
(Return on Ongoing Translation Spend) =
𝑨𝒏𝒏𝒖𝒂𝒍 𝑹𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒏𝒖𝒆
𝑏𝑟𝑜𝑤𝑠𝑒𝑟 𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑢𝑎𝑔𝑒 𝑋 𝑖𝑛 𝑚𝑎𝑟𝑘𝑒𝑡 𝑌
.
/
− 𝑈𝑝𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑛𝑡 𝑐𝑜𝑠𝑡 + 𝑖=1
𝑛 [𝐴𝑛𝑛𝑢𝑎𝑙 𝑈𝑝𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝐶𝑜𝑠𝑡]
1 + 𝑟 𝑖
𝑨𝒏𝒏𝒖𝒂𝒍 𝑹𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒏𝒖𝒆
𝑏𝑟𝑜𝑤𝑠𝑒𝑟 𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑢𝑎𝑔𝑒 𝑋 𝑖𝑛 𝑚𝑎𝑟𝑘𝑒𝑡 𝑌
.
/
𝑵𝑷𝑽 𝒐𝒇 𝒐𝒏𝒈𝒐𝒊𝒏𝒈
𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒏𝒔𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒆𝒙𝒑𝒆𝒏𝒔𝒆
𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑢𝑎𝑔𝑒 𝑋 𝑖𝑛 𝑚𝑎𝑟𝑘𝑒𝑡 𝑌
=

14. EXAMPLES OF MARKETS WITH VARIOUS
THRESHOLDS (E.G.: JAPANESE IN US)
22222222223333333334444444556666666677788891010
1314
1920222223
27
31
4042
46
Phoenix,AZ
OhioArea
Tucson,AZ
Memphis,TN-AR-MS
Raleigh/Durham/ChapelHill,NC
Minneapolis/StPaul,MN-WI
OklahomaCity,OK
Indianapolis,IN
ConnecticutArea
Dallas,TX
Lexington,KY
Melbourne/Titusville,FL
CaliforniaCentralCoast
IowaArea
Nashville,TN
Atlanta,GA
Riverside/SanBernardino,CA
Delaware
KansasCity,MO-KS
Denver,CO
Hartford,CT
Syracuse,NY
Greenville/Spartanburg,SC
NewOrleans,LA
Miami/Hialeah,FL
Cleveland,OH
Bergen/Passaic,NJ
Houston,TX
FloridaKeys
FortWorth/Arlington,TX
Alaska
SaltLakeCity/Ogden,UT
Portland,OR
Philadelphia,PA-NJ
Washington,DC-MD-VA
Norfolk/VirginiaBeach,VA
AlabamaNorth
Orlando,FL
CaliforniaNorthCentral
MichiganSouth
Cincinnati,OH-KY-IN
Oakland,CA
Detroit,MI
Chicago,IL
CentralNewJersey
LasVegas,NV
CaliforniaNorth
Boston,MA
SanJose/SantaCruz,CA
LosAngeles/LongBeach,CA
Seattle,WA
SanDiego,CA
Anaheim/SantaAna,CA
MauiIsland,HI
Hawaii/KauaiIslands
SanFrancisco/SanMateo,CA
NewYork,NY
Guam
439
OahuIsland,HI
563
5x10x 3x
e.g., There are 11
Starwood properties in
San Francisco area,
with a 42x return … whereas there are 17
Starwood properties in
Dallas, but 2x return
Return on spend (Xx) Not shown: long tail of >60
more US markets with <2x
return (>150 properties)

15. BASED ON DESIRED THRESHOLD, MODEL
CALCULATES WHERE TO TRANSLATE
Overall Dashboard for Single Language (e.g., Japanese)
2014
2015

16. THE SOLUTION

17. » Stop translating core
languages in markets where
the data shows that it doesn’t
make sense
» By translating just ~600-800
properties each for Japanese,
French, German, and Spanish
(rather than all 1200+ today)
we still cover 97%+ of core
language revenue!
OVERVIEW OF DATA-DRIVEN STRATEGY FOR PROPERTY
TRANSLATION
Selectively
reduce translation
Strategically
expand translation
» Invest in languages with
substantial upside potential –
e.g., Chinese, Italian, Dutch,
Portuguese, Russian
Reinvest
savings

18. A PHASED EXECUTION TO LIMIT UP-
FRONT INVESTMENT
Former “Core” Languages
Former “Secondary / Tertiary”
Start Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3
All properties
translated;
no threshold
Ad-hoc
translation
5x
threshold
10x
threshold
5x
threshold
7x
threshold
5x
threshold
5x
threshold
** illustrative; size of bar not scaled to exact # properties

19. DECREASE IN CORE TRANSLATION
PUTS MINIMAL REVENUE AT RISK
AND SAVES MONEY
Starting point Applying Threshold
# properties
translated
% revenue
captured
Threshold
# properties
translated
% revenue
captured
Japanese 1226 100% 5X 611 97%
French 1226 100% 5X 797 97%
German 1226 100% 5X 898 97%
Spanish 1226 100% 5X 897 98%
~$300k
annual savings

20. SAVINGS CAN BE REDEPLOYED TO
PARTLY OFFSET SECONDARY COVERAGE
Starting point Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3
#
properties
translated
%
revenue
captured
Threshold
#
properties
translated
Threshold
#
properties
translated
Threshold
#
properties
translated
%
revenue
captured
S. Chinese 452 89% 10X 707 7X 806 5x 849 97%
Russian 68 26% 10X 126 7X 186 5x 216 72%
Italian 34 13% 10X 269 7X 307 5x 359 82%
T. Chinese 31 35% 10X 219 7X 294 5x 411 85%
Dutch 2 6% 10X 127 7X 136 5x 161 62%
Portuguese 237 76% 5X 249 5X 249 5x 249 78%
*Denotes cases where properties are both added and removed; net effect shown
~$600k
investment
>$45M
Potential
Revenue Gain

21. INITIAL RESULTS
Minimal loss of revenue
for core languages
No impact on
conversion rates
Initial results on
language expansion
consistent with model’s
predictions

22. QUESTIONS