Marriott International is an American multinational diversified hospitality company that manages and franchises a broad portfolio of hotels and related lodging facilities.
Considered the world's largest with more than 7,000 hotels around the world, the 91-year-old hotel group Marriott is officially getting into the homesharing business by launching the 'Homes & Villas by Marriott International' in 100 destinations.
According to Marriott, it intends to run Homes & Villas much like its online travel agency competitors and travel disruptors like Airbnb, HomeAway and others.
"The property management companies will pay us a platform fee,” explained Marriott's Global Chief Commercial Officer Stephanie Linnartz. And it’s those companies that are tasked with managing the properties themselves, handling everything from pre-arrival, check-in, cleaning, support, and so on.
“The best way I can think about it is to compare it to how Marriott manages hotels,” Linnartz added. “That’s what these property management companies will do for these homes.”
The homes, Marriott defines them as the premium or luxury category.
For Marriott, the standards are very similar to what the company already provides to its hotels, like 24/7 support, Wi-Fi, premium linens and amenities, and family-friendly amenities when requested.
Linnartz said she does not see the company pursuing economy or lower-tier private accommodations in the future.
And unlike some of its other hotel peers that have opted to buy homesharing businesses (such as Accor and Onefinestay) or build their own (such as Room Mate Hotels and Be Mate), Marriott wants to continue using the partnership model.
“This model makes a lot of sense,” Linnartz said.
The program started in 2018 as a small pilot program with just a little over 200 homes in London, by partnering with Hostmaster, a UK-based properly management company.
After almost two years of “great results” for Marriott, according to Linnartz, the program evolved into a global business operating in more than 100 different markets, from the U.S. and Europe to the Caribbean and Latin America.
Of these markets, 40 are markets in which Marriott has never had a presence, including the Amalfi Coast in Italy, North Lake Tahoe in California, Saint-Tropez, France, and St. Barts.
But for its official launch, Marriott decided not to continue its partnership with Hostmaker for this “separate offering”
"They were good partners to us in the pilot in London," Linnartz said. "But they are not part of the launch of this."
Instead, Marriott is continuing with the same business model it did with Hostmaker for the pilot, but including it with a variety of different property management company partners whose respective inventories run the urban apartments to beach houses, country homes to castles.
Initial partners include TurnKey Vacation Rentals, LaCure, Loyd & Townsend Rose, Veeve, London Residents Club, Mainsail Lodging, CPG, and Reserva Conchal.
While Marriott’s homesharing inventory in far larger than its initial pilot, it's still relatively smaller to what operated by Airbnb, Booking and others, which claimed to have home listings well above 5 million in total.
According to Linnartz, Homes & Villas by Marriott International wants to be the representative of those homesharing trends.
"Our goal is to be the world’s favorite travel company, offering a comprehensive travel platform through Marriott Bonvoy," explained Linnartz. “The more we have to offer customers and to make things seamless and easy, the more they will love us, and that’s our goal.”
