Marriott Launches Online Travel Booking Program for Small Businesses

Marriott International has launched an online travel booking program designed for small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs). The new Business Access by Marriott Bonvoy combines a suite of online booking tools with benefits and rewards from Marriott Bonvoy’s portfolio of brands, the company said in a Tuesday (July 9) press release. “Whether small- to medium-sized businesses are looking for convenient online booking capabilities for their employees or better expense management solutions, the all-in-one platform, merged with our portfolio of hotel brands around the world, provides everything they need to manage their business travel needs,” Drew Pinto, executive vice president and chief revenue and technology officer at Marriott International, said in the release. One of the key features of Business Access by Marriott Bonvoy is the availability of discounts at hotels in the company’s portfolio, together with rewards for future stays at participating hotels, according to the release. The online booking tool included in the program also helps SMBs shop for not only hotels in this portfolio but also flight, rail and car rental reservations, the release said. With this one integrated platform, companies can compare, book, manage and change all these reservations. The program also offers several tools for use by travel managers or travelers themselves, including customizable travel policies, global travel policy management and reporting, traveler health and safety monitoring, and expense management solutions, per the release. Business Access by Marriott Bonvoy is now available to SMBs in the United States, Canada, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America. It is expected to expand to other regions as well, per the release. This new offering is powered by travel-as-a-service platform Spotnana, according to the release. Marriott International reported in May that Marriott Bonvoy, which is its travel and loyalty program launched five years ago, has about 203 million members around the world and “remains a key competitive advantage” for the hotel chain. The program added 7 million members during the first quarter, Marriott President and CEO Anthony Capuano said May 1 during the company’s quarterly earnings call. “The work that we are doing to drive that engagement through our large, powerful and growing credit card portfolio and through the breadth of experiences that we offer our members — those are powerful drivers of engagement with our members,” Capuano said.