Marriott International runs more than 30 brands and 9,000-plus properties, which means it buys an enormous amount of furniture, food, linens, cleaning services, technology, and professional services every year. If you sell any of that, Marriott is a logical target. The catch is that "selling to Marriott" is really two separate doors, and most first-timers only knock on one of them.
Door one is Marriott's corporate procurement. Door two is Avendra, the procurement partner that handles the bulk of buying for hotels in the Americas. Get both registrations in place and your odds improve. Skip Avendra and you may be invisible to the people actually placing on-property orders.
Here's how each piece works, what the EXCHANGES diverse supplier program asks for, and a realistic read on timelines.
Start with the Prospective Supplier PortalMarriott asks companies that want to do business with it to register through its Prospective Supplier Portal at esupplier.marriott.com. This is the front door for corporate-level procurement and the system buyers search when they're sourcing.
Registration is a profile, not a pitch. You'll describe your company, the categories you serve, your geographic coverage, and your capabilities. The part people under-do is the capabilities detail. A thin profile that just says "facilities services" gets passed over. A specific one that names the products, certifications, service areas, and the brands or property types you've supplied gives a buyer something to act on.
If you hold diversity certifications, upload them here. Marriott treats certification as a real signal, and a verified certificate in your profile is what routes you into the diverse supplier track rather than leaving it as a claim a buyer has to confirm later.
The second door: AvendraFor anything purchased at the hotel level in the Americas, the buyer is often not Marriott directly. It's Avendra Group, Marriott's procurement-services partner. Avendra manages sourcing across the categories that keep a hotel running: food and beverage, rooms operations, engineering, grounds, and administrative services. Aramark acquired Avendra in December 2017, and it still operates under the Avendra brand.
If you're chasing on-property opportunities, registering only with Marriott's corporate portal isn't enough. Marriott's own guidance points prospective suppliers toward completing Avendra Group's prospective supplier form as well. Treat it as a required second step, not an optional one, if your product lands inside a hotel.
So the practical sequence is: register on Marriott's Prospective Supplier Portal, then complete the Avendra prospective supplier form if you're selling anything a property buys. Two profiles, two systems, one company.
EXCHANGES: Marriott's diverse supplier programMarriott's diverse supplier program is named EXCHANGES. It works with minority-, women-, veteran-, disability-, and LGBT-owned businesses, framed around an exchange of ideas that drives supplier innovation and economic opportunity.
To be recognized as a diverse supplier, you generally need to be at least 51% owned, managed, and operated by individuals from one of those groups, and meet Marriott's quality and service standards. Inside the United States, EXCHANGES covers businesses owned by people with disabilities and by minority, LGBT, veteran, and women owners. Outside the United States the emphasis shifts toward women-owned businesses, plus locally recognized diverse groups in specific countries.
Certification is the proof Marriott leans on. Its materials name several certifying partners as preferred sources:
- NMSDC for minority business enterprises (MBE)
- WBENC for women's business enterprises (WBE)
- NGLCC for LGBT business enterprises (LGBTBE)
- WEConnect International for women-owned businesses outside the US
- Disability:IN for disability-owned businesses (DOBE)
You can register with Marriott before you're certified, but a third-party certificate is what moves you from "self-identified" to "verified diverse supplier." If you're not certified yet, start that process in parallel. Our supplier certification side walks through which certification matches your ownership and how to file once instead of navigating each body separately.
Where DEI politics fit inPlenty of large companies trimmed their diversity language in 2025. Marriott didn't. Through the year, its leadership publicly reaffirmed the company's DEI commitment even as federal pressure pushed in the other direction, and that stance got coverage in business press in April 2025. EXCHANGES has been an established program, not a temporary campaign.
Hospitality branding around these programs has been moving, though, and corporate program names and structures change. Confirm the current program name and certification list on Marriott's own supplier diversity page before you build your whole pitch around a specific label. The mechanics of registering and getting certified hold steady regardless of what the program is called this quarter.
A realistic read on timelinesRegistering is fast. Getting business is not.
Marriott buys against existing contracts, approved vendor lists, and category cycles that may only open when a current agreement expires or a new need surfaces. A clean profile doesn't trigger an order. It makes you findable when a buyer goes looking, and puts you in the pool when a category comes up for sourcing.
Expect a long runway. Months to a year-plus is normal before a registration turns into a real conversation, and longer before a first purchase order. The suppliers who break through tend to do three things: keep their profile specific and current, get certified so they show up in diverse-supplier searches, and build a relationship rather than waiting on the portal. Conferences run by NMSDC, WBENC, NGLCC, and WEConnect are where Marriott's supplier diversity team actually meets suppliers, and Marriott participates in those events every year.
Tier 2 is a side door worth knowingNot every dollar Marriott counts toward diverse spend is spent directly. Tier 2 is the indirect path: when one of Marriott's large prime suppliers subcontracts work to a certified diverse business and reports that spend back. If you can't land a direct Marriott contract yet, becoming a diverse subcontractor to a company that already holds one can get you into the supply chain and onto Marriott's radar.
Ask Marriott's existing prime suppliers whether they have a Tier 2 program and what they need from a diverse subcontractor. It's a slower, quieter route, but it's real spend and real past performance you can point to later.
Your moveRegister on Marriott's Prospective Supplier Portal, complete the Avendra form if you sell anything a hotel buys, and get your diversity certification verified so EXCHANGES can actually see you. Then work the relationships.
Marriott is one of dozens of corporate programs worth targeting if you're a certified diverse supplier, and the smart play is to register with several at once rather than betting everything on one logo. Browse the corporate supplier diversity programs directory to see which companies are actively sourcing in your category, list your business in our supplier directory so buyers can find you, and read how corporate supplier diversity programs actually work before you start filling out portals.
