Marriott International hopes to woo more Chinese customers to its hotels worldwide via the marketing pull of e-commerce giant Alibaba.
The world’s largest hotel company has inked a joint venture agreement with Alibaba Group to market its accommodation and loyalty member services to Alibaba’s huge customer base.
Marriott will get a branded webshop on Alibaba’s Fliggy travel service which allows customers to sign up for Marriott’s three loyalty programs.
It will also market special promotions aimed specifically at Chinese guests.
Alibaba’s e-wallet payment app will also be adopted at Marriott hotels in some countries.
"By forming this partnership, we are pairing our hospitality expertise with Alibaba’s digital travel platform, retail expertise and digital payment platform, Alipay, and driving membership to our loyalty programs," Marriott CEO Arne Sorenson said in a statement.
Marriott has almost 300 hotels in China across 22 of its brands and has a similar number in the development pipeline.
"It’s an extension of our partnership to a new area. Both of us believe we can generate huge synergies from this strategic partnership," Daniel Zhang, Alibaba CEO.
Over the next five years, Chinese citizens will take an estimated 700 million trips overseas, the companies said.
