Marriott and Expedia Agree on Terms for New Deal
Marriott is pleased to announce we have agreed to terms with Expedia for a new deal. We fulfilled our goal of continuing our long-term business relationship with Expedia under terms that are beneficial to our hotel owners and franchisees, and that support our system-wide distribution strategy of maintaining a healthy balance of direct and indirect booking channels. We are excited about the new possibilities this agreement will create, and we look forward to sharing more details with you in the coming weeks.
The agreement that was set to expire on October 17 will now remain active until we finalize the new agreement. We expect to spend the next 2-4 weeks drafting the legal agreement, and expect the deal to be finalized soon thereafter. We will notify all owners, franchisees and hotels once the new agreement is signed and our new terms and conditions are active.
We feel that the terms of our new deal with Expedia satisfy Marriott’s key distribution principles, including the ability to: (a) control room rates and inventory; (b) differentiate Marriott’s direct channels; (c) reduce overall distribution costs; and (d) control where the rates and inventory for Marriott hotels are displayed. One of our highest priorities is the long-term profitability of your hotels, and we are pleased to be putting our distribution strategy into action in new, innovative ways with channels such as Expedia to achieve this goal.
In preparation for a scenario in which we may have not reached an agreement, we developed a number of corporate-level marketing programs to generate additional demand at the portfolio level. We plan to decide within the next few days if we will still launch these programs to generate additional demand during the fourth quarter. Hotels should visit the Demand Generation Plan page on MGS frequently to stay informed.
As a reminder, if you are contacted by the press concerning this matter, please refer inquiries to Marriott’s corporate communications team at (301) 380-7770.
We are grateful for the support and partnership of the owner and franchise community, as well as for the effort put forth by hotels, as we prepared for various outcomes. This new deal would not have been possible without the extensive support and alignment we received from all of you.