UKTraveller4Fun

It maybe just where I am looking but to me Marriott seems to be keeping hotels closed and rates high compared to say Hilton. A quick search for London in early July and Marriott has next to no options and all more expensive than they typically would be at a weekend. Hilton has lots of options at very good priced. Similar story in Italy from what I can tell, The JW Venice which I had been looking at for a week seems to have just closed its availability for the near future and all the other Venice / Rome options are not great value, whereas again Hilton seem good!
Maldives even more so, closed until 1st October despite them reopening 1st July, yet Hilton and many other resorts seem to be managing.

I can understand wishing to be cautious, but at a time when some will wish to and others need to travel it certainly seems like Hilton is attempting to support things more than Marriott, afterall here in the UK a closed hotel no doubt means the tax payers are covering the staff costs, whereas the open ones are at least putting something back into the system

My main thought however was back in the financial crisis, Starwood prior to that was the up and coming big playing, looking to buy Marriott, Starwood was far to cautious when things started to turn and as we know how that ended up. Certainly for me Hilton have a chance to earn my loyalty now as Marriott are not even an option.

nequine

In Scotland we are slower to open hotels and I checked Edinburgh for the first weekend after they're being allowed to re-open and bar 1, I could book any of them. Quite tempted to get a trip away - fed up looking at the same rooms in my house!

Kacee

For an example of slow to reopen, see Hyatt.

lexdevil

I posted this in another group, but thought it might be helpful here.

Open in July (or so it appears): London Marriott Hotel County Hall, Sheraton Grand London Park Lane, London Marriott Hotel Grosvenor Square, Residence Inn by Marriott London Bridge, Residence Inn by Marriott London Tower Bridge, The Dixon, Tower Bridge, Autograph Collection, London Marriott Hotel Regents Park, Residence Inn by Marriott London Kensington, Town Hall Hotel, London Marriott Hotel Canary Wharf, Sheraton Skyline Hotel London Heathrow, Renaissance London Heathrow Hotel, London Heathrow Marriott Hotel

Additional hotels open starting in August: W London Hotel, The Westbury Mayfair, A Luxury Collection Hotel, London, The London EDITION, The Wellesley Knightsbridge, a Luxury Collection Hotel, London, JW Marriott Grosvenor House London, The Park Tower Knightsbridge, a Luxury Collection Hotel, London, St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel London, Great Northern Hotel, London Marriott Hotel Marble Arch, Blakes Hotel

Other dates: Bankside Hotel open from 3 August. Threadneedles, Autograph Collection open from 6 August. Le Méridien Piccadilly and London Marriott Hotel Park Lane open from 7 August. M by Montcalm Shoreditch London Tech City and London Marriott Hotel Kensington open from 1 September. Hotel Xenia, Autograph Collection open from 5 September. Aloft London Excel, London Marriott Hotel Maida Vale and St Ermin's Hotel open from 7 September. None of the three Moxy locations (Stratford, Excel, and Heathrow) show any availability through December. I did not bother to look further.

sdsearch

Be careful with such comparisons online!

For some reason, Hilton is showing rates and availability on their website (as well as on some third party website) for hotels which are actually closed!!!

I only figured this out because I wanted to know if they had any breakfast, and I called them up, and was forwarded to another Hilton hotel nearby, who told me that two of the hotels that I had been interested in were closed for at least another month. But they continue to show themselves as available online, with low prices. I have no idea what happens if someone actually tries to book one of these closed hotels, but there's certainly no sign online that they're closed right up through the final "book now" button, which of course I refuse to press knowing that the hotel is actually closed.

So unless you call up each of these Hilton hotels you think are open, you cannot tell if they are really open!

writerguyfl

Marriott is a company that owns the various hotel brands. They only own and/or operate a small number of actual hotels. The overwhelming majority of hotels found on the Marriott website are franchises.

Each of the franchises are individual businesses. Those businesses are in complete control over whether or not they are open for business (based on local and/or national public health directives).

The same holds true for rates being offered. Rates are completely controlled by each individual hotel. If rates are much higher than other hotels, that's on the hotels, not the hotel chain.

(Theoretically, Marriott could be requiring franchises to do something special in order to reopen that a competitor like Hilton is not requiring. But if that were happening, we'd almost certainly hear about it here in FlyerTalk.)

UKTraveller4Fun

That isnt quite true, the reservation departments for a lot of the hotels in one city are actually combined even when there are different owners. If your belief is that hotels in the same cities do not share information and almost compete on rates within Marriott even with different owners you are mistaken.

While accurate that Marriott does indeed lack control on when hotels open, do you not find it strange that all Maldives Marriott properties closed until the exact same date, 1st October at the exact same time. They do not have the same owners, so your theory while sounding good really does not stand up to inspection and is actually what Marriott would like us to think, they have little control over these things and actually they are at the mercy of the owners!

chrism20

From a quick glance I don't think any of the UK Moxy's are showing any availability. I may have missed one but all the ones I checked weren't available through to the end of the year.

oxfordjames

Hostels having different UK COVID guidelines to hotels could be the reason 😂😂

JBord

Well, there's some truth to the franchise reason. But it's not 100% of the time. There are a lot of forces at play right now, including local regulations. I believe the franchise explanation is more prevalent in the US than with some of the international properties. But in any case, I would be surprised if Marriott corporate would have any influence on opening/closing dates for any properties that are franchised. There have been, in the past, property owners that have posted in FT suggesting they have complete control over those types of decisions.

UKTraveller4Fun

My understanding is that the contracts between Owners and Marriott are indeed quite complex but if a hotel wishes to close under normal circumstances then it is not just a case of it can do as it affects the revenue Marriott may generate and compensation could be due. I do agree the model within the US is somewhat different from other places, but if you look at the Maldives example the hotels are owned by different people/groups and they all decided to close until the 1st October on the exact same day. The government is on record as saying that July 15th things can restart and many other resorts are open. If you take Venice as another example the four main luxury hotels there have different owners but all share the same reservations team.

To suggest Marriott has no control over these things is simply not accurate, I am not suggesting for a second that Marriott has the full control, but equally the owners cannot just decide to close, these decisions will be a joint thing and how much Marriott may wish to enforce its contracts can play a large part into it. Also Marriott does have input on the rates that hotels charge and how to manage the revenue across multiple hotels within its brands within a city or similar as often they are shared departments and these people work primarily for Marriott. It would also be fair to say this applies even more at old Starwood properties that it does at Marriott ones.

writerguyfl

I worked in and closely followed the hotel industry for decades. You don't have to believe me. I really don't care. But, hotel companies like Marriott do not make major business decisions like when to open/close for their franchises.

I've said what I wanted. I won't be returning to this thread, as it seems to be an exercise in total speculation.

UKTraveller4Fun

We can all take our position, my information comes from very close exposure to the actual contracts in question but even more importantly a couple of GM's of a couple of jewel properties within Marriott.

So certainly not speculation, I never suggested Marriott takes the decisions, what i said was they are involved in the decisions whereas your position is Marriott essentially has nothing to do with it, which is simply inaccurate.