The hotel industry is becoming more and more alert mostly because it manages to offer new possibilities but at the same time the major companies are making a comeback. This is especially true when it comes to Starwood, a company with a long history that managed to be a part of two major ideas in 2 weeks.
Even though Starwood already had relationships with Design Hotels for some time now, those relationships have deepened because all the member hotels now have the ability to access the preferred guest program offered by Starwood as well as its corporate booking channels.
This is a very interesting turn of events, especially since Starwood expects to have at least 40 hotels listed until the end of this year, with a few hundreds more to be listed next year as well.
The great loyalty program is a nice, welcomed addition that manages to bring in front some extraordinary experiences that are well worth the time. It’s important to note that Starwood owns around 74% equity interest in Design Hotels. The latter continues to be independent despite that and Starwood doesn’t include their financials into the reports created annually by the company, as they chose to keep the brand separate. Still, the news here is that Design Hotels is actually a Starwood brand, after this announcement.
But maybe the most shocking piece of news that you can expect now actually comes from Marriot International that has disclosed a very interesting piece of info. Basically, they are buying Starwood for around $12.2 billion, something that will secure their position as the largest hotel chain in the world.
This particular deal seems to be stock and cash, and it’s set to add around 50% more rooms to Marriot, something that will definitely solidify their position as one of the best players on the market. The interesting thing here is that the new company will basically have around 1.1 million rooms around the world and 5500 properties. The next largest major hotelier would be Hilton that has 4400 properties on its own, followed by the rookie AirBnB.
However, the deal didn’t go down for the time being, at least at the time of this writing. It is supposed to take place by the end of the year or early next year, depending on how fast the changes can be made.
It’s not something that appeared out of nowhere though, because Starwood did announce that they are exploring some new strategic options for the hotel company.
This is quite interesting considering that such a deal comes at a time of record rates and hotel occupancy, but it manages to further solidify the position of this company on the market and that on its own can be more than professional.
This particular deal sounds very interesting and we will certainly talk more about it when it gets finalized, but the details are indeed mind-boggling and clearly show the intent of Marriot as they try to become one of the most influential hoteliers in the world.
