Hotels Play a Bigger Role as Matchmakers With the Help of Technology
Photo Credit: Marriott's Moxy hotels brand has partnered with mobile networking and dating app Bumble to encourage Bumble users to meet at its hotels. Pictured here is the lobby of the Moxy New York City Downtown where one of the BumbleSpots is located. Marriott International / Isaac Maiselman
Skift Take
Hotels and dating apps: a match made for the digital age that shows how far hospitality is going to market experiences.
Hotel bars, restaurants, and lobbies have long been places where people gather to see, be seen, meet, and mingle. And as popular culture has demonstrated to us in countless films, TV series, and books, they often serve as the ideal backdrop for a meet cute, too.
Now, thanks to the advent of mobile technology, hotels are leveraging their longstanding supporting role to an active role encouraging more meetings among their guests and the locals living nearby.
For many of these hotel brands, facilitating these connections is part and parcel with their efforts to be "experience platforms" or to be known for more than just being a place where you stay when you travel. Leveraging technology in this way helps them serve as modern-day community centers for travelers and locals alike, and helps them fill their lobbies and bars with paying patrons.
Marriott's Moxy earlier this month announced a brand partnership with Bumble, a location-based app primarily known for dating, but also exte
