All Entries Tagged With: "Marriott"

Marriott Announces Plans for Five New EDITION Hotels

Marriott International is adding to their newest luxury brand, according to an announcement made by the company on in January. The new brand, created in a joint effort with New York’s Ian Schrager Company, is known as EDITION.

Five separate EDITION hotels are slated to open within the next couple of years in New York, London, Bangkok, Abu Dhabi, and Miami Beach. A sixth property is planned for opening no later than 2015. In addition, management contracts have been signed for hotels in Los Angeles and India.

The first addition to EDITION to open is expected to be the New York property. It will be located in the historical Clock Tower Building on Madison Avenue. Marriott acquired the building from Africa Israel USA for some $165 million. It should be ready for opening later this year.

Hotels Come Together to Launch RoomKey.com

While the rise in third-party hotel reservation websites has been a boon to customers, the high fees they charge participating hotels has not always sat well within the industry. That reality has led six of the world’s leading hotel chains to join forces to open their own hotel booking website called RoomKey.com. The most significant difference between RoomKey and its third-party competitors is the fact that it will direct users to the individual websites of the 23,000 participating hotels, so that customers can make a direct booking with that facility.

The six participants include Choice Hotels International, Hilton Worldwide, Hyatt Hotels, IHG, Marriott International, and Wyndham Worldwide. All six companies own an equal share of the new company and will work together to further develop the site. They are also looking to add more hotel chains who might want to participate.

The new site is being made possible with technology acquired through an asset purchase from Hotelicopter. In addition to allowing customers direct bookings, the Hotelicopter platform provides an avenue for destination marketing that can help drive customers to member hotel websites while they search a specific locale. This added convenience is expected to boost web traffic and further the group’s marketing efforts.

Marriott International Planning New Downtown L.A. Property

Marriott International could be poised to take a larger slice of the downtown L.A. hotel pie if plans to build a new 377-room property come to fruition. Marriott would not own the property themselves, but they would operate the hotel under their Courtyard and Residence brand names. When complete, the 22-floor property would help meet a demand that grew by about 24% last year.

Marriott already operates two other hotels within the same general vicinity and a third only seven blocks away. However, company officials cite the fact that all of their different brands cater to a variety of travelers across a wide spectrum of tastes and financial means. For this reason it isn’t uncommon for Marriott properties to be clustered close together. Furthermore, the new hotel would be very close to the L.A. Live Center that, in tandem with the Staples Center now hosts as many as 300 events per year.

Building the $120 million hotel campus is Oregon developer Williams/Dame & Associates, the same company that developed three condominium properties in L.A.’s South Park district. Officials from the firm are quick to point out that hotel properties are less expensive and easier to construct because the rooms are uniform. They believe that investing in a new luxury hotel in downtown L.A., which they would own, is a fairly safe bet.

Edition Hotels Are The Lifestyle Brand Setting the New Standard

Marriott has joined with the visionary hotel operator Ian Schrager in order to develop a new lifestyle hotel brand that is called Edition Hotels. In what the hotel world has proclaimed a very unlikely partnership, Schrager tackles the creative aspects while Marriott takes care of the business. Schrager brings to Edition his passion, original vision, and undying commitment to quality in order to create something sigificant and special with Marriot. They want the real thing and this is the main idea behind Edition’s unique approach.

Edition will address new cultural and social imperatives that have emerged from changing lifestyles and will cater to a vast underserved market that expects unique experiences, not simply a room to sleep. With the goal to reflect these changing lifestyles while catering cater to a vast undervalued market, they will not accept something based on other works and prefer the atmosphere of a hotel to be genuine and have plenty of character while providing impeccable personalized service that is both luxurious and down to earth.