GDPR Readiness: Consumer Email Marketing Standard
This information will be provided to hotels within the November 19 edition of the Weekly Update.
Marriott International is introducing a new Consumer Email Marketing Standard to merge Marriott and Starwood policies and comply with privacy regulations, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) and Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation (“CASL”). The Consumer Email Marketing Standard, which comes into effect on January 1, 2019, will apply to consumer-facing* email marketing for Marriott’s 30 hotel brands as well as its unified loyalty program.
Under the above-referenced standard, above-property teams and hotels may only use Marriott’s Email Marketing Platform to send consumer emails for:
- Marketing a property, cluster or ownership group,
- Pre-arrival planning or post-stay follow-up, and
- Marketing the spa, golf, food and beverage, ski outlets, or similar guest amenities
Marriott’s Email Marketing Platform supports delivery of a wide variety of customer emails – ranging from broad to narrowly targeted messages – to help support all applicable global, brand, cluster, and hotel-level business objectives. Using the platform will result in cohesive customer communications, while adhering to email marketing best practices. Additionally, it will help achieve compliance with global privacy regulations, including the GDPR. More information on the specific email marketing tools available is listed in the Consumer Email Marketing Standard.
Note that after January 1, 2019, Marriott will not permit Managed by Marriott or franchised hotels to conduct consumer email marketing outside of the Email Marketing Platform. This restriction will apply to all forms of customer-level communications – including marketing and service emails, mobile push messaging and SMS. Failure to comply with the Consumer Email Marketing Standard may result in operational and reputational challenges, regulatory inquiries or fines.
Limited exceptions may be granted on a case-by-case basis to properties with unique business needs or challenges. More information on the requirements for an exception can be found in the Consumer Email Marketing Standard.
A new MGS page has been created to host this standard as well as existing marketing guidelines.
*Note that at this time business-to-business communications are outside the scope of the Consumer Email Marketing Standard. Marriott is developing additional solutions to govern business communications and we hope to communicate those to you in due course.
