Yahoo Finance Marriott’s Latest Tech Play Aims to Streamline Business Travel
Marriott International expanded further into the business travel management space Tuesday, aiming to drive more direct bookings from road warriors and take share from middlemen.
The world’s largest hotelier debuted an online travel booking portal for small- to medium-sized enterprises worldwide, powered by the business travel startup Spotnana.
Marriott’s new platform claims to simplify the often fragmented process of managing business travel by offering a broad suite of tools. Road warriors can book hotels, flights, and car rentals without leaving the platform. The platform is part of a strategy to try to route around rising middlemen like Navan and Travelperk.
We plan to learn more details about the program soon after the company can respond to questions. Here’s what we know now:
Key features of Marriott’s business travel tool
Discounted rates at Marriott properties worldwide
Integrated booking for flights, rail, and car rentals
Customizable travel policies and real-time analytics
Expense management solutions
Access to Marriott Bonvoy loyalty program benefits
Smoothing out business traveler pain points
Marriott’s new offering comes as businesses grapple with inefficiencies in existing travel management solutions.
It’s not alone. In the past year, Hilton has been rolling out a platform worldwide that aims to simplify how companies book travel at its hotels, called Hilton for Business. It has also recently expanded its events booking capabilities.
In April, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts updated its platform, which enables companies to directly book meetings, events, and other business travel at its North American hotels. It began to offer reward points in its loyalty program to companies whose travelers book stays through its WyndhamBusiness.com.
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