Marriott International is experiencing an "awful lot" of delays on 2009 corporate hotel rate negotiations

, according to Laura Paugh, senior vice president of investor relations for the hotel company. Amid the weak economic environment, Marriott is finding it difficult for negotiations to "come to closure" because "no one was really sure where rates were going and customers weren't really sure where their demand was going, so you ended up sort of treading water for a period," Paugh said during an FBR Capital Markets conference.