Marriott to Buy Starwood
Hotel behemoth Marriott International is taking over rival chain Starwood. The $12.2 billion deal will catapult Marriott to become the world's largest hotelier by a wide margin, the Washington Post reported in November.
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If you have a lot of Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) program points, some advise using them before the deal closes. Marriott Rewards hotel loyalty program will survive. Unfortunately for hotel guests, it is a lot stingier than the generous SPG program. SPG members are not likely to lose any points if their program was absorbed into Marriott Rewards, but they would have to use more points to get perks and rooms. |
The deal will add 50% more rooms to Marriott's portfolio and give it more unique, design-focused hotels that appeal to younger travelers.
The acquisition, expected to be complete in mid-2016, is likely to start another round of hotel mergers.
“This causes everybody in the business to look around and say, ‘We don't want to be the smallest,’” Bjorn Hanson, a professor in hospitality, tourism and sports management at New York University, said in the Post article.
Regardless of the nature of the business, it appears we have entered a season in which mergers and acquisitions are the name of the game. S