ON LOCATION: Tampa Marriott Waterside

Marriott Chairman and CEO J.W. Marriott Jr. welcomed a crowd of media, customers, staff, and local luminaries to the April opening of the Tampa Marriott Waterside, designated Marriott's 2,000th hotel. "I think I'm the only one here who was also at our first hotel ribbon-cutting 43 years ago," he said. (That was the Twin Bridges Motor Hotel in Arlington, Va.) "It's been a long road."