Deanna Ting

When we said co-living would be the next big hospitality trend, we weren't kidding. It'll be fascinating to see how AccorHotels scales the co-living concept with Jo&Joe.

As we've noted before, while this merger makes sense for a lot of reasons, it's a shame that the Commune Hotels brand is going away, especially since its branding has become so synonymous with leading design hotel development over the past few years.

We have to wonder: Was West Elm's partnership with Marriott's SpringHill Suites just a pilot for its bigger hotel schemes? Looks like it, given today's news.

Is Airbnb's valuation for real? We'll have to wait for it to go public to see how it would really stack up against the market caps of major hotel chains.

That didn't take too long now, did it? In all seriousness, however, this mega-merger was certainly a long one in the making, filled with plenty of twists and turns. Now, we hope, comes the even more interesting part in the next chapter of the story.

Starwood Hotels & Resorts as we know it may be going away now that it'll be owned by Marriott International, but its history of innovation has had a lasting impact on the hospitality industry as a whole.

The one thing about mergers and acquisitions that isn't usually discussed? Bringing different company cultures together. That'll be key to the success of Marriott's acquisition of Starwood, and Marriott's Global Chief Human Resources Officer David Rodriguez knows it.

Even more exciting than the launch of this app is the transformative potential it could have for the participating independent hotels in terms of data sharing, loyalty program opportunities, messaging, mobile services, and so much more.

Given its never-ending, still-pending acquisition of Starwood, this ad campaign — aimed at promoting Marriott's loyalty program — makes total sense. Marriott doesn't just want consumers to stop clicking around. It wants them to be loyal Marriott customers in every sense of the word. It also wants to assure any critics or SPG loyalists that the Marriott Rewards program already is one of the best ones around.

Is any hotel merger or acquisition ever simple, or swift? In this case, most definitely not. Given the board members’ often contentious history with each other and the company’s direction, it’s anyone’s guess as to whether this new offer from “Bidder V” will prove to be superior than the offer from Sam Nazarian’s SBE.