When Marriott finally sealed their long-awaited $13B merger with Starwood Hotels & Resorts, most headlines framed it as the dawn of the world’s largest hotel operator.

Those in the marketing industry, like myself, saw it from a slightly different perspective: the next strike in the ongoing war between hotels and online travel agencies (OTAs).

By going through with the merger, the combined Marriott-Starwood group now owns 30 brands altogether, meaning guests can choose between thousands and thousands of hotels all across the world. And tellingly, just hours after the deal was announced, guests could also merge their Marriott and Starwood member rewards into one joint account. Compare this to the months it took American Airlines and US Airways to sync their loyalty programs upon merging.

Why so fast?

Read the full article at Forbes

Michael Frenkel
Forbes