UA-NYC

Agreed - Starwood loyals could have actually kept enjoying good customer service

mahasamatman

And that should be the end of the discussion. They are a business. They have a responsibility to profit their shareholders.

You obviously haven't visited the Hyatt forum recently. I'll take Marriott over the WoH debacle any day.

C17PSGR

That's just not accurate. Frits "resigned" as CEO in February 2015. His resignation predated any discussion with IHG and was tied to the board's dissatisfaction with the company's inability to adequately grow the limited service/mid-tier business to a critical mass. Frits was never replaced by a CEO committed to independently operating the company and the company was for sale by early 2015. Obviously, any responsible board would shop the company to Marriott, IHG, Hyatt, Hilton and others.

hotturnip

I agree, too. I think Hyatt has the most consistent customer service--it feels like their employees are slightly better trained. Joining with Starwood would've made a company that would be highly competitive with Marriott and IHG. And the Starwood brands seemed to match up better to Hyatt IMHO. Now we have a mega-company that's in a different class than its competitors.

Vince Chan

SkiAdcock

Could you explain more why you even care, especially a few years after the fact?

Cheers.

s0ssos

An even better question is why Virgin America sold to Alaska, when Jetblue was obviously the better choice (complementary routes, all-fleet Airbus). But it all boils down to money. Nobody cares about how the company will do, the customers, the employees.

C17PSGR

Vince ... you tend to ask interesting questions that are more appropriate for a business school study. If you ask why it was sold, its in the deal documents I posted describing why the board of directors exercised their fiduciary duties after hiring expensive business consultants to advise them. You'll notice that those deal documents are very different than the feelings stated on this board from a small group of frequent travelers.

So when you ask questions about why a merger took place, we can offer our perspective from a travelers basis which might be different that the professional perspective we bring to the table. You're asking questions that might be be a more appropriate topic for an MBA program.

Of course, some of us have identified issues in other threads regarding communication/integration/planning that may well be the topic of an MBA program 5-10 years from now ... but that's a different thread ....

itsaboutthejourney

I think a lot of us care. We invested a lot of our time and travels with a company that in turn invested a lot of time listening and engaging us. (There are endless threads about these gatherings, events, etc. in the original SPG forum) Obviously the OP's question is one for the dealmakers and BOD of each company, but with what appears to be rocky integration I think this is a fair (if moot since it can't be un-done) question to ask from the customer standpoint.

Marriott15

I wouldn't be surprised in the coming years if for example Hilton and Hyatt merged or IHG and Hyatt.

Star_Guy

ucfjoe

Hyatt literally offered more money than Marriott to buy SPG. That was my point. On the surface that runs contrary to just “money.” The why can be debated a bit but the overriding theme was one or more SPG board members had a personal history of not liking the Pritzker family. In the end I think they were only off by a Billion so it’s not that big of a deal in the end.

PHLGovFlyer

I'm not sure you'd agree if you're an investor:

Stock prices
Jan 2015:
Hyatt $59.56
Marriott $77.75

Today:
Hyatt $71.59
Marriott $121.09

So Hyatt stock is up 20.2% while Marriott stock is up 55.7%.

Maybe all of that difference is simply because of the value inherent in the Starwood brand that was folded into the merged company. Or maybe it's for all of the reasons mentioned in the deal documents that C17PSGR linked. I suspect it's the latter.

JBord

Correct, I should not have said they weren't profitable, just less profitable. Good correction.


I disagree. It might have been better for you. I've had no post-merger issues after the first week. I have more properties in more places to stay now. I instantly earned LT Gold, and will earn LT Plat in the next few months -- when I was years away from this under the old Marriott program. I'll earn the Suite upgrades now.

And some SPG customers win too. At the very least they can now stay at hotels affiliated with their loyalty program in many more locations where there was no SPG before, or it wasn't convenient. That may not matter to you, but it does to a lot of business travelers.

Sometimes all customers lose in a merger. This is most certainly not one of those mergers.

Vince Chan

Since you are being that kind to me of course I can explain to you:


A: SPG along with Hyatt is the two names that frequent flyers over the internet praise the most in the industry. It looks like everything Hyatt and old SPG done is right.

Since most people prefer Starwood so much, and many criticized Marriott a lot , to me, it doesn't make sense at all that Marriott to acquired SPG. If, there is really such a thing as " influential" and "wealthy" guest prefer stayed at SPG hotels over Marriott, and IF, marriott family brands is really that boring or unattractive, SPG being young and fun and artful, Marriott should be the one to be sold in the market because more people prefer to stay at SPG over Marriott, unless the average costing of running a SPG hotel is incredibly higher than a Marriott, SPG should be more profitable than Marriott.

The situational over the internet is that people praise and love sPG over Marriott, however the reality is that Marriott is more profitable, (also form JD power each year, most Marriott Brands earned a higher guest satisfaction rate than SPG), probably more successful in terms of managing hotel, the reality is in the opposite site comparing to fT here, this is so weird and fascinating to me.

Another question is that since influential and Plat here in FT praise SPG a lot more than Marriott, how come that Marriott earn a significantly higher guest satisfaction rate than SPG by JD Power(unless Marriott paying to them).

B. Why ever since Marriott acquired starwood, the current trand over the internet is to praise Hyatt and keeping mentioned how good Hyatt was, I don't get it. Do they really feel this way? Or just follow what other said?

why would sPG want to merged with Hyatt? If, Starwood's problem is its limited service hotel presence. You can barely find much Hyatt in Europe, also not much limited service brand in Asia.

I stayed at PH Tokyo this year to be frankly there is no difference for me when it comes to Hyatt or Hilton or Marriott chain, they are all the same. But there is a difference to me when it comes to IHG, wyndham or days inn.



I am not standing in Marriott's side or anyone's side, I genuine would want to know why such a hotel company and brands to be loved by so many people, failed( yes, failed).