Deanna Ting

As we've noted before, Starwood is Marriott's to lose. Now that Anbang has upped the ante, we have to see just how much Marriott is willing to spend to keep it, or if it's willing to let Starwood run into the arms of Anbang and company.

We told you so.

The Anbang investor group's last-minute bid nearly doubled the compensation Starwood executives will receive, if the new Marriott deal closes. Golden parachutes, indeed.

If hotels want to book more meetings and events, they need to know how to speak the specific industry language of the events and planners they’re working with.

If you thought the drama playing out between Starwood, Marriott, and Anbang was already complicated enough, wait until you read this.

Unlike Marriott, Starwood doesn’t need to be as persuasive in its communications with shareholders about the new deal. It just has to give them the facts and urge them to vote in line with the board’s recommendation. Instead, it can wait to see if a better offer comes up unexpectedly which, if history has shown, is still a definite possibility.

While it's pretty clear that the hotel industry and Airbnb are at odds with one another, it's still obvious that more transparent data is sorely needed to understand the true impact of Airbnb and other home sharing platforms on cities and communities.

Just think of all the data AccorHotels can mine by giving loyalty members a few points for their thoughts.

Money talks, and Anbang seems to have a lot more of it to spend right now than Marriott is willing to give up to keep Starwood.

This is assuming Marriott and Starwood actually close their deal this year, which, given what's happened over that past week, is still not a sure thing, obviously.