Marriott CEO on Loyalty, Airbnb and Direct Bookings
Photo Credit: Marriott CEO Arne Sorenson at the Skift Global Forum in New York City September 27. Sorenson spoke about the power of scale. Skift
Skift Take
Arne Sorenson certainly had a lot to share at this year's Skift Global Forum. Read on for some insight into the company's unconventional decision to link Marriott Rewards and Starwood Preferred Guest, as well as how he really feels about Airbnb and direct bookings.
Last Friday, when Marriott International finally announced it had closed its $13 billion acquisition of Starwood Hotels & Resorts, the bigger news wasn't necessarily about the creation of the world's new largest hotel operator.
Instead, it was the fact that the Marriott Rewards and Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) programs were now linked, enabling status matching and points transfers.
So when Marriott CEO Arne Sorenson walked onto the stage at the Skift Global Forum in Manhattan on Tuesday, fresh off a merger-related media blitz, it was one of the first topics to be discussed.
"We decided [to link the programs] in January basically," Sorenson told Rafat Ali, Skift founder and CEO, going against the advice of numerous consultants who advised Marriott to "not do more than you have to do at closing because there's so much that can go wrong."
"Notwithstanding that, we thought we needed to deliver something immediately to our customers," he said. "SPG members, particularly, w
