Global (Marriott properties worldwide; HQ Bethesda, Maryland, USA)

Marriott International, the world's largest hotel chain (7,000+ properties across 30 brands), announced in 2019 that it would eliminate single-use small plastic toiletry bottles of shampoo, conditioner and bath gel from guest rooms worldwide, replacing them with larger pump-topped bottles or wall-mounted refillable dispensers, completing the rollout through 2020. Several Marriott brands had already piloted bulk dispensers from 2018, and 1,000+ North American properties had switched before the global announcement. The company estimated the change eliminates about 500 million small bottles per year — roughly 1.7 million pounds of plastic, a ~30% annual reduction in amenity plastic. Crucially for the profitability argument, the move was not purely environmental: a Marriott executive told the Wall Street Journal (2018) the switch saves roughly $2,000 per hotel per year, implying chain-wide savings on the order of $14M/year. One large pump bottle holds the equivalent of 10–12 mini bottles. This case directly supports both the hotels-first solution and the durability/profit thesis: it is real-world evidence that switching away from single-use personal-care packaging can be cost-saving for the operator, not just greener — which is exactly what makes the change stick.