Snapchat is fast emerging to be a popular channel for brands to connect with young audience. Over 400 million Snaps are shared everyday on the platform making it the right place to connect with young, inquisitive and digitally adapt travellers. Marriott Rewards, the popular loyalty program from Marriott International is introducing some of its properties and loyalty benefits to the Snapchat devotees through a four part series ‘Six Days, Seven Nights’. This series of four ‘Snapisodes’ is tailored specifically for Snapchat with an in-the-moment unscripted approach and shot in portrait.

“There are a million reasons to travel and thousands of great places to visit, and we have incredible properties in just about any destination our guests want to go,” says Amanda Moore, Senior Director, Social & Digital Marketing, Loyalty. “Six Days, Seven Nights introduces the Snapchat audience to the places, properties, people and program benefits that fuel our member’s experiences while travelling the world.”

Each three minute ‘Snapisode’ takes the viewers through new destinations, cultures, communities and Marriott properties through the lens of popular social media influencers, Tom Jauncey of Beautiful Destinations, Diipa Khosla, Sara Hopkins and Jen Levinson. The video series takes place in Berlin, Seoul, Dubai and New York following the host as they take viewers through their adventures. The series showcases four properties, Moxy Berlin Ostbahnhof, Renaissance New York Times Square, THE PLAZA Seoul (Autograph Collection Hotels), and one yet to be named.

At the start of the episode the host states their “mission” for the week, then sets out to tackle their objective, using insights and guidance from the hotel staff, locals and even audience members following along on the Marriott Rewards Snapchat channel.  In episode one, Jen Levinson, a notoriously picky eater, sets out to broaden her palate and discovered the best food Berlin offers, from currywurst to frog legs. In episode two, Tom Jauncey was challenged to capture the most epic shots of New York City – the higher the vantage point, the better. Throughout the episode, Tom brings Marriott Rewards members along from the depths of Grand Central Terminal to a birds-eye view of the Statue of Liberty via helicopter.

Parts of the ‘snapisodes’ have also been filmed using Snapchat Spectacles. With a highly visual approach and fast growth, Snapchat is emerging to be an interesting addition to the digital marketing plans of travel brands. Marriott International has been leveraging Snapchat for a while along with other popular travel brands like Conde Nast Traveler, WOW Air and Matador Network. This campaign further highlights the relevance of the social network for travel brands. If you are not using it yet for your brand, here is your quick start guide.

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China is an upcoming tourism sector; both for inbound and outbound travel. The national travellers are in a capacity to spend luxuriously. Marriot International and Hurun Research Institute have collaborated to shed some light on the capabilities of China’s Luxury spenders via their report Chinese Luxury Traveler 2016. This one of the kind collaboration brings an international hotel and Chinese luxury travel authority together for the first time.

As the first quarter of tourism saw an increase by 7% in inbound travel and 25% increase in outbound travel, Marriot’s Asia-Pacific head of Sales and Marketing added that this is quite the focus area for the hotel giant.

He continued, “We are responding to the desire for personalized luxury and services by evolving our loyalty program Marriott Rewards, which goes far beyond hotel-level perks. Elite Member benefits now include tailored VIP access to rewarding experiences such as culinary demonstrations, concerts and catwalks, the NBA Global Games in China, and lots more. We are also piloting a new hospitality program called “Li Yu” (礼遇) which is tailored specifically for our Chinese guests, with Mandarin speaking personalized assistance and service across our hotels to make them feel at home, wherever they go.”

Rupert Hoogewerf, Hurun Report Chairman and Chief Researcher, said, “Despite the economy slowing, the impact on outbound travel from high net worth individuals seems to have steadily grown. The young luxury travellers have developed significant spending firepower, minted on the back of the recent boom in Chinese entrepreneurship, together with a growing class of the second generation ‘rich kids’.”

Key findings of the report suggested-

Higher spending power for Generation Y travellers

An average rich kid in mainland China spends around RMB420,000 (US$65,000) on tourism per household, per year, and an average of RMB220,000 (US$34,000) on tourist shopping – primarily clothing, bags, watches and jewellery. The focus group for these travels are mainly people born after 1980.

Most visited destinations

Europe tops the list of most favoured places for these nationales to visit every quarter yearly. Chinese New Year being the most favourable time of the year to plan a vacation, Chinese travellers opted out for locations abroad with Japan being a haunted spot for the year 2015.

Time of travel: Flexible or Planned?

Since the Generation Y travellers have either no kids or very young kids, they preferred to travel whenever it deems fit to them although National Golden Day Week was the second most popularly picked time to roam and explore. Family travels peaked around Chinese New Year with most people travelling abroad.

Choice of accommodation

Personalised services topped the major concerns amongst others that included room cleanliness which was not so much on these heavy spender’s mind. Cosy lightings, luxury amenities, selection of pillows, advanced digital experiences are few things that prop on their list of must-haves. They prefer brands and hotels with unique art and design that make the travel experience feel unique and fun.

Loyalty and Travel Program

Air China is a clear winner followed by China Southern Airlines and Chin Eastern Airlines. For international travels, Lufthansa is a primary choice given that it has a wide network of flights across Europe.

Information channels

WeChat tops the domain in making communications viable followed closely by WeChat Moments and other websites. Gender-based differentiation was made as the males preferred site searchings and females took recommendations from their friends on WeChat.

These are some of the key findings from the Hurun report. The entire report could be found here.

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Marriott International, an American diversified hospitality company from Bethesda USA, has recently declared that it will purchase Starwood Hotels and Resorts in a $12.2 billion deal with the goal to make the combined brands the world’s largest hotel company.

This planned acquisition comes into the picture after Marriott observed Starwood’s prominent presence at the global level, strong rewards program and its popularity among young travellers. The combined hotelier would own or franchise 5500 properties and be the only brand to provide more than 1 million hotel rooms with 30 brands under it. The annual revenue is expected to be $2.7 billion and would establish Marriott as the world’s largest hotel company.

According to the report, Marriott’s president and chief executive – Arne M. Sorenson quoted:

“This is a transformative event for Marriott. When we look at Starwood, we see many aspects of its business that complement Marriott”

Speaking on the same, Adam Aron, the Chief Executive of Starwood, quoted:

“To be successful in today’s lodging space, a wide distribution of brands and hotels across price points is critical. Today, size matters.”

In order to expand its global presence, Marriott has been purchasing a number of hotel companies. Last year it acquired Cape Town-based Protea Hospitality Group for about $186 million. In this year it purchased Delta Hotels and Resorts with the sum of $135 million. By merging with other hotel brands, Marriott aims to cut atleast $200 million in annual costs by 2018. Also by growing bigger, the brand hopes to perform better.

Sorenson would remain the president and chief executive of Marriott. One-time transaction costs for the merger are expected to total approximately $100 to $150 million. Transition costs are expected to be incurred over the next two years. The company’s board of directors would increase to 14 after adding three members from Starwood’s board. In all probability, the new headquarters of Marriott would be in Washington DC. By mid-2016, the cash and stock deal is expected to be finalised. The shareholders of Starwood would receive 0.92 shares of Marriott’s stock as well as $2 in cash for each share of Starwood.

Starwood has been working aggressively to expand in Asia-Pacific. We recently got a chance to have a conversation with Stephen Ho, President, APAC, Starwood about the group’s future plans. You can read it here.

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Marking a major development in the travel and tourism sector, Marriott International and Alitrip have joined hands to simplify hotel booking for Chinese travellers. Under this partnership, the room inventory of Marriott International hotels portfolio will be made available to Alitrip users through a directly operated on-line flagship store.

This business agreement is not the first of its kind by Marriott International. Two months back Marriott International signed a partnership agreement with Ant Financial Services Group, a related-party of Alibaba Group, for rolling out Alipay to Marriott International’s hotels and resorts.

Talking about Marriott’s partnership with Alitrip on hotel bookings for Chinese travellers, Craig S. Smith, the President and Managing Director of Marriott International Asia-Pacific region, quoted:

“With 19 Marriott International brands, including JW Marriott, The Ritz-Carlton and Marriott Hotels, and over 4,000 hotels available through Alitrip, Chinese travelers will see a major increase in the number of rooms they can book through Alitrip… The agreement illustrates Marriott International’s continued efforts toward the creation of a complete and effortless online- and mobile-powered travel experience for our guests. We aim to be the favorite global brand for China’s hundreds of millions of Internet users, who may be looking to travel both inside and outside of China.”

Quoting on the same business development, Li Shaohua, President of Alitrip, stated:

“We are excited to partner with global hotel chains such as Marriott to broaden our hotel offerings to customers. Alitrip is the go-to platform for Chinese travellers looking for a full range of choices and customized travel experience, and this cooperation with Marriott will make travel planning easier than ever for our users.”

Both the brands plan to explore ‘Post Post Pay’ service launched by Alitrip for further enhancing the user experience. ‘Post Post Pay’ service allows eligible customers to book hotel rooms through Alitrip without paying any deposit and using express check-out service which further smoothens the operational efficiency of hotels.

The number of Chinese outbound travellers has increased exceptionally in the past few years. China has the world’s largest group of outbound travellers. According to China’s National Tourism Administration these travellers topped the 100 million mark last year. In the first six months of this year China’s outbound travel increased by 12.1% when compared with the same period last year. The number of Chinese outbound travellers is expected to grow to 200 million by 2020.

This business partnership between Marriott International and Alitrip will prove quite beneficial for Chinese travellers as they will have more travel options. Marriott International might partner with other Chinese travel brands realizing the potential of Chinese travel market in the times to come. This move should definitely strengthen the position of Marriott among Chinese travellers and drive more guests to the luxury hotel chain.

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