It's rare to see one hotel brand able to be this creative and flexible while catering to upscale, international business travelers. Is this the future of business travel?
Marriott CEO Arne Sorenson says he is having "fun" watching the development of Airbnb. He adds that Millennials will be a "massive" portion of Marriott's customer base in a decade. It won't be too much fun, though, if Millennial travelers stray from hotels as their best options for a stay.
While it is exciting to see the consolidation happening in the online travel booking space, the lack of new scaled startups to challenge the biggies remains a worry for anyone. And possibly consumers as well.
While this seems like an opportunistic buy with Wotif's financial troubles, for Expedia this ties into two priorities: Expanding in Asia-Pacific and growing its global hotel business in competition with the Priceline Group's Booking.com and Agoda.