In the news: Hotels take the spotlight with Marriott making a foray in home rentals, and two partnerships – Amadeus/Restel and Amex/Booking.com – offering wider choice of accommodations to customers
Hotels: Marriott expands into home-sharing business with launch of vacation rental platform
Marriott International is entering the home sharing space with the unveiling of Homes & Villas by Marriott International, a vacation rental platform offering 2,000 premium and luxury homes across 100 destinations throughout the US, Europe, the Caribbean and Latin America.
The platform will launch next week at homesandvillasbymarriott.com in partnership with select property management companies that are already managing these homes. They include TurnKey Vacation Rentals, LaCure, Loyd & Townsend Rose, Veeve, London Residents Club, as well as current hotel owners and operators like Mainsail Lodging and Reserva Conchal.
Explained Jennifer Hsieh, vice president, Homes & Villas by Marriott International: “By working with a select group of professional management companies that understand and operate in this dynamic landscape, we are able to focus on what we do best – selecting a breadth of homes in inspiring destinations, setting standards for responsive service and designing a seamless booking experience that helps our guests navigate an increasingly complex and uncertain set of home rental choices.”
The properties, checked and audited by Marriott, provide “a professionally cleaned home” for guests with 24/7 support, high speed WiFi, premium linens and amenities and family-friendly services upon request.
When the platform goes live travellers can search and book homes on the new Homes & Villas by Marriott International site. At that time, travellers searching on Marriott.com for accommodations for three-plus nights in markets where home inventory exists will see links to the rental platform.
The hotelier is in the process of determining how it will sell the luxury rental accommodations through other channels, including the Marriott or Bonvoy app and travel advisors.
Marriott said the platform adds more 40 new leisure destinations for Marriott Bonvoy members to earn and redeem points including Sorrento, and the Amalfi Coast in Italy, North Lake Tahoe in California and St. Barts in the Caribbean.
“The launch of Homes & Villas by Marriott International reflects our ongoing commitment to innovation as consumer travel needs evolve,” said Stephanie Linnartz, global chief commercial officer at Marriott International.
The new global offering follows a successful programme the company piloted a year ago, she added.
In April last year Marriott partnered UK-based home rental firm Hostmaker to trial Tribute Portfolio Homes when booking rooms or houses in London. The programme was later expanded beyond London to include homes in Paris, Rome and Lisbon with about 400 homes.
Meanwhile home-sharing giant Airbnb is moving deeper into the traditional hotel space in partnership with New York City real estate developer, RXR Realty, to convert portions of iconic NYC commercial properties into a “new category of urban lodging, made available exclusively through the Airbnb platform.”
Airbnb said in a statement these are “locally designed, beautiful hospitality suites” offering guests “the features of a luxury hotel with all the comforts of a home” supported by “digitally enabled concierge service staffed by local hosts who will provide personalised experience.”
The first of these units are planned for the 33-storey 75 Rockefeller Plaza in Midtown Manhattan. The two partners are also exploring collaboration at other RXR properties, such as RXR’s 47 Hall Street project across from the Brooklyn Navy Yard in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn.
Partnership: Reste, Amadeus join forces to offer travel sellers a wider range of hotel properties
(Image credit: Tero Vesalainen/Getty Images)
Amadeus and Restel have entered into an agreement to give travel sellers access to thousands of independents and major hotel chains.
The travel technology company said with the inking of the deal it “has become the first GDS to offer Restel’s portfolio of 150,000 hotel properties.”
Restel is part of the Hotusa Group, a company that has grown from its roots as an alliance of independent hotel chains in Spain to offer a wide range of hotel operation and aggregation services.
The agreement also secures the same hotel content that can be found in Restel’s own B2B web booking platform. It represents a growth of around 20% in hotel availability through Amadeus.
Travel sellers can access the hotels through Amadeus’ points of sale & Web Services.
According to Amadeus, sellers will benefit from Restel’s coverage across Western European markets such as Benelux, France, Germany, Scandinavia, Spain and the UK. Those in Europe, Middle East and Africa can also incorporate Restel hotel bookings alongside flights and other travel products in a single traveller itinerary.
“Travellers are seeking a more personalised and comprehensive service from travel sellers that caters for their unique needs,” said Peter Waters, EVP, hotels, mobility & insurance at Amadeus. “Providing the most extensive range of content and highly efficient tools for booking, servicing and payment processes is at the centre of our strategy for hotel distribution.”
Corporate Travel: Amex GBT increases accommodation content with Booking.com
(Image of Soho London suite on Booking.com website)
American Express Global Business Travel (Amex GBT) has expanded its online accommodation programme with more than two million properties worldwide.
The company said the additional content is a result of its opening up more inventory through the existing partnership with Booking.com.
Amex GBT clients and business travellers can use their online booking tool (OBT) to select a wide range of overnight stay options including major chain hotels, independent hotels, non-traditional lodging and extended stay options alongside transportation.
Wesley Bergstrom, GBT vice president, global supplier relations, said: “We are determined to give clients and travellers access to the widest range of accommodation choices, with a vast range of properties and property types, all bookable through OBTs.”
This makes it possible for travellers to now find everything they want in one place with confirmation of accommodation and transportation in a single booking, he added. “It means more choice and convenience for the traveller, more value and improved compliance for the client.”
• Featured image credit (Champagne Shores Villa – Anguilla): Marriott International
