Marriott Expands Reach Into Tours and Activities With Its Latest Investment
Photo Credit: Whale watching in Akureyri Fjord, Iceland is just one of thousands of tours and activities people can find via PlacePass, a metasearch platform for tours and activities. PlacePass / Zeb Goodman
Skift Take
It seems like everyone in hospitality (and travel in general) is looking at the tours and activities space these days.
Marriott International wants to connect its loyalty members to even more in-destination experiences, and to do that, it has made an equity investment in a tours-and-activities metasearch platform, PlacePass.
The Cambridge, Mass.-based, two-year-old startup lists more than 100,000 experiences in 800 destinations worldwide from various vendors and eventually, all 100 million members of Marriott’s three loyalty programs — Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG), Marriott Rewards, and Ritz-Carlton Rewards — will be able to access those experiences through Marriott’s various direct channels, including its brand.com sites and loyalty apps.
While special experiences have long been a cornerstone of the SPG program’s Moments, and most recently with the Marriott Rewards’ Experiences Marketplace, this investment in PlacePass signals Marriott’s desire to get even more involved in the largely fractured and untapped area of in-destination tours and activities. These bookable activities fr
