Marriott Execs: Don’t Expect More Hotel Mega-Mergers Even in Covid Times
Photo Credit: Smaller, regional acquisitions like Marriott's AC Hotels takeover will likely be the hotel industry's new M&A norm, according to Marriott executives. Flickr / Tony Webster
Skift Take
Major hotel companies are massive enough. Mergers and acquisitions departments need to think more about smaller, strategic deals rather than mega-takeovers that take tens of billions of dollars and years to integrate companies.
The airline industry’s last two decades of consolidation are no longer the blueprint analysts once saw as a foregone conclusion for hotel companies.
Hotel industry analysts expected massive rounds of industry consolidation due to the pandemic. Instead, hotel companies have focused more on conversions — deals centered around organic growth that involves the owner of an existing hotel to take on a new brand affiliation.
While mergers and acquisitions aren’t entirely off the table, Marriott leaders don’t expect a repeat performance of its $13 billion Starwood Hotels & Resorts takeover in the future.
“First of all, you need a big checkbook to get one done,” Timothy Grisius, the global mergers a
