Homes & Villas — A Definition of Airbnb From Marriott
As our choice for this semester, Airbnb is our theme. When people talk about Airbnb, it’s an emerging accommodation model. The BnB in Airbnb refers to the abbreviation of bed and breakfast. As the name suggests, it relates to bed and breakfast. Even though not every home provides breakfast, not every home has only a mattress. The services provided on Airbnb are all individuals living in the local area. Each landlord has its characteristics, and the houses also have their characteristics. If you like more privacy, you can choose a different place or a separate room, and the price is relatively high. If you want to communicate with people, you can select a shared space.
Homes & Villas by Marriott International
Marriott Bonvoy is known for its strong hotel portfolio, which includes luxury properties worldwide, such as St. Regis and Ritz-Carlton, Renaissance, Westin, Sheraton, Courtyard, and more.
As the world’s largest hotel group, Marriott International is launching a high-end home and villa shared accommodation business in more than 100 destinations worldwide, officially entering the shared accommodation market.
Since 2018, Marriott has cooperated with Hostmaker, a London-based property management company, to manage and rent more than 200 properties jointly. Customers of Marriott’s permanent residence program, Marriott Bonvoy, can use their points to redeem Marriott’s shared homestays. In 2019, Marriott officially announced that it would formally launch the Home&Villa short-term rental project and conduct business in more than 100 different markets such as the United States, Europe, and the Caribbean.
What Are Vacation House Rentals
Vacation home rentals are not a new concept, but they have become mainstream over the past few years. As hotels restrict amenities this year and travelers crave more space, vacation home rentals remain a popular option. Many hotels do not offer affordable accommodation for four or more people. That means that families and other travelers opt for short-term home rental services. But there are trade-offs: no room service, lack of shared facilities, etc. While entire rentals can offer a more spacious and attractive option than hotels, many travelers still want the reliability and consistency of major hotel brands.
What Makes it Marriott
Like other vacation rental booking platforms, you can search by destination and date. However, suppose you’re looking for some inspiration to help you decide. In that case, Marriott’s International Homes and Villas also offers a selection of “Selected Collections,” “Homes with Pools,” “Drive Worthy Gems: Road Trips Worth Taking,” and “Cozy Cabins.” The platform showcases new destinations every week and offers 10% off bookings. The average nightly price of these homes is around $500. Still, they range from city and beach condos for about $150 a night to sprawling English estates and Caribbean villas for $20,000 a night. In contrast to Airbnb, the platform has no built-in option to request a 24-hour booking buffer between stays. Still, according to Marriott, guests are welcome to make buffer requests to various home management companies.
Bonvoy is always there
Marriott’s bonvoy is an elite membership program that rewards customers with upgrades and points based on valid night reservations. Higher memberships offer a lot of surprises when you check-in. Thanks to the public price, bonvoy provides BRG (Best rate guarantee). Put after you book on the official website. If you find a lower available price on other third-party websites, then you can ask the hotel to match the price for you. To reward everyone for booking on the official website, hotels often give some additional benefits after the success of BRG. Marriott will offer 25% off the match price or offer 5,000 points after BRG is successful. When you book a residence or villa through Marriott, you can earn 5 Marriott Bonwe points for every $1 spent and 5 points for every $1 spent. Marriott Elite Stay Points for one night stay. If you have Elite status at Marriott, you will earn bonus points based on your elite status tier and a welcome bonus of 500 to 1,000 points.
Private Homes With The Assurance of Marriott
Marriott doesn’t own these homes, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t tidy. Marriott International continually reviews national, regional, and market-specific home management companies and selects companies based on their expertise, compliance with local regulations, and service standards for homeowners and guests. They work directly with homeowners to verify that each home meets Marriott International’s quality, safety, design, and service standards：24/7 service, high-speed Wi-Fi, premium linens and amenities, and family-friendly amenities
Customer Satisfaction > Volume
Although Marriott’s new project has launched more listings than the more than 200 listings it has tested, it is still far less than platforms such as Airbnb and Booking. Marriott, however, doesn’t seem to want to compete with these companies on listings and instead aims to offer more specific accommodation options for a particular customer segment and particular trips. Marriott’s new project reflects a general trend in travel today: the needs of travelers are becoming more diverse and flexible.
What’s the Downside?
Unlike other vacation rental platforms like Vrbo, HomeAway, and Airbnb, Homes & Villas by Marriott International doesn’t allow guests to write or read past reviews and rate homes. The luxury and leanness of the range also mean that most homes are enormous and therefore pricier than others to rent. Some budget options exist but are available in lesser quantities.
A Little Bit More
Rather than saying that traditional hotels and Airbnb have become direct competitors, more different accommodation models such as traditional hotels and short-term rentals are converging. Shared accommodation services are hard to match with traditional hotels. The entry of conventional hotels will undoubtedly bring more standardized references and help to shared accommodation. The scenario is another comparative advantage that large-scale hotels have. As a group creature, social interaction and entertainment are essential needs of people. Large hotels provide guest rooms and give the guests diversified, professional, safe, and reliable scene experience consumption — this “one-stop” consumption feature, which cannot be satisfied by shared accommodation. Shared accommodation and standard hotels are not “life-and-death” competitions. Both are essential parts of the tourism accommodation market in the modern information society. Each has its advantages and is indispensable in the accommodation ecology. Relationships interpenetrate rather than replace each other. The integration of the two is also a good thing for the guests. Perhaps in the future, when choosing accommodation, they will no longer deliberately distinguish between hotels and homestays.
Marriott has chosen mid-to-high-level customers, a customer base that he does not focus on compared to other brands. Homes & villas complement the lack of shared accommodation, and he tells consumers with a new definition and standard. Sharing doesn’t have to be cheap.
Feb/20/2022
