Skift Take
Marriott — and well, any company wanting to get into private accommodations — should heed the advice of AccorHotels CEO and pay close attention to how they manage those rentals and how they can leverage their existing hospitality labor force to do it.
Marriott International is still very much in the testing phase of its six-month London homesharing pilot with Tribute Portfolio Homes, but CEO Arne Sorenson seems fairly confident that the 90-year-old hotel company can learn enough from it to succeed in a market dominated by platforms like Airbnb and HomeAway.
"As some of these platforms have grown into millions and millions of units, there is an almost paralyzing array of choices and a lack of branding, and the lack of real attributes of quality around service and product, makes this an area where we think we can bring our brands, we can bring our service and product focus, and deliver something which is simply a better product and much out there," Sorenson said during the company's first quarter earnings call Wednesday.
Marriott isn't the first hotel company to explore entering the homesharing market. AccorHotels owns Onefinestay, and Hyatt is an investor in Oasis Collections. But the timing for entering this part of the lodging market finally seemed appropriate for Marriott to consider the move, Sorenson noted, because of the establishment of regulations that legalize homesharing.
"One of the reasons we didn't jump into this quickly is we thought thi
