Marriott’s business model centers around providing hospitality services and accommodations to a diverse range of customers, including travelers, corporations, and event organizers. They generate revenue through hotel operations, brand development, and customer loyalty programs. Key activities include managing hotels, marketing the brand, and building customer relationships. Marriott relies on key resources such as hotel properties, skilled workforce, and technology infrastructure. Strategic partnerships and costmanagement are also essential elements of their model.
Element
Description
Value Proposition
Marriott offers the following value propositions for its customers: – Hospitality and Accommodation: Providing comfortable and convenient accommodations. – Brand Diversity: A diverse portfolio of hotel brands for different preferences. – Loyalty Programs: Rewarding loyal customers with membership benefits. – Global Presence: A vast network of hotels and resorts worldwide. – Quality Service: Consistent quality service and amenities. – Business Travel Solutions: Catering to the needs of business travelers. – Event and Meeting Facilities: Offering event and meeting spaces.
Core Products/Services
Core products and services provided by Marriott include: – Hotels and Resorts: Accommodation at various Marriott-branded properties. – Loyalty Programs: Marriott Bonvoy loyalty program with rewards and benefits. – Meetings and Events: Event and meeting planning services. – Dining and Catering: Dining options and catering services. – Vacation Packages: Vacation packages and deals. – Marriott Digital Services: Digital tools and services for reservations and check-ins. – Marriott for Business: Business traveler-focused services and solutions. – Marriott Bonvoy Traveler Experiences: Exclusive travel experiences for loyalty members.
Customer Segments
Marriott targets various customer segments: – Leisure Travelers: Individuals and families seeking vacation and leisure accommodations. – Business Travelers: Professionals traveling for work purposes. – Event Planners: Individuals and organizations planning events and meetings. – Loyalty Members: Members of the Marriott Bonvoy loyalty program. – Travel Agencies: Travel agencies booking accommodations for clients. – Event Attendees: Attendees of events and meetings held at Marriott properties. – Vacation Package Shoppers: Travelers seeking bundled vacation packages. – Corporate Travel Managers: Professionals managing corporate travel arrangements.
Revenue Streams
Marriott generates revenue through several revenue streams: – Room Reservations: Earnings from hotel room reservations. – Loyalty Program: Revenue from membership fees and loyalty program-related activities. – Meetings and Events: Profits from event and meeting planning services. – Dining and Catering: Income from dining services and catering. – Vacation Packages: Earnings from vacation package bookings. – Digital Services: Fees from online reservations and digital tools. – Corporate and Business Solutions: Revenue from business traveler services. – Marriott Bonvoy Traveler Experiences: Sales of exclusive travel experiences.
Distribution Strategy
The distribution strategy for Marriott focuses on accessibility and global reach: – Global Presence: Operating hotels and resorts in key locations worldwide. – Online Booking: Providing online booking platforms for reservations. – Loyalty Program: Promoting and expanding the Marriott Bonvoy loyalty program. – Event and Meeting Facilities: Marketing event and meeting spaces. – Dining Services: Promoting dining options and catering services. – Partnerships: Collaborating with travel agencies and corporate partners. – Mobile Apps: Offering mobile apps for convenient bookings and check-ins. – Digital Marketing: Utilizing digital marketing channels for promotion.
Table of Contents
Key Highlights
Hospitality Services and Accommodations: Marriott’s core business involves offering a wide range of hospitality services and accommodations, catering to various customer segments, including leisure and business travelers, corporations, and event planners.
Diverse Customer Base: Marriott serves a diverse customer base with different preferences and needs, ranging from individuals and families to corporate clients and groups organizing events and conferences.
Revenue Streams: The company generates revenue through multiple streams, including hotel operations, brand development and licensing, as well as customer loyalty programs.
Hotel Operations: The primary source of revenue for Marriott comes from operating hotels and resorts across various segments, from luxury to budget, providing accommodation, dining, and other services to guests.
Brand Development: Marriott expands its revenue by developing and licensing its brands to third-party property owners, who then operate under Marriott’s brand standards and benefit from its reputation.
Customer Loyalty Programs: Marriott’s loyalty programs, such as Marriott Bonvoy, encourage repeat business by offering rewards, exclusive benefits, and personalized experiences to its loyal customers.
Key Activities: The core activities of Marriott encompass managing and operating hotels, marketing its brand to attract customers, building and maintaining customer relationships, and ensuring consistent service quality.
Hotel Management: Marriott’s expertise lies in managing hotels efficiently, ensuring high standards of service, maintaining facilities, and optimizing operational performance.
Brand Marketing: The company invests in marketing efforts to build and promote its brand identity, showcasing its portfolio of properties and the unique experiences they offer.
Customer Relationships: Building strong customer relationships through exceptional service, personalized experiences, and loyalty programs is integral to Marriott’s success.
Key Resources: Marriott’s key resources include a diverse portfolio of hotel properties, a skilled and dedicated workforce, advanced technology infrastructure for reservations and operations, and a well-established brand reputation.
Strategic Partnerships: Marriott forms strategic partnerships with property owners and developers to expand its global footprint, leveraging their expertise and resources to grow its brand presence.
Cost Management: Effective costmanagement is crucial for maintaining profitability in the competitive hospitality industry. Marriott strives to optimize operational efficiency while delivering quality service.
Airbnb is a platform business model making money by charging guests a service fee between 5% and 15% of the reservation, while the commission from hosts is generally 3%. For instance, on a $100 booking per night set by a host, Airbnb might make as much as $15, split between host and guest fees.
Airbnb was initially called Airbedandbreakfast, as the main idea behind the starting of the company was to rent air mattresses in their apartment, as San Francisco filled up due to various conferences, to make some money to pay back the rent.
The Aibnb’s founders noticed this as they were designers. And a design conference (IDSA / ICSID) was about to happen in 2007; they launched Airbedandbreakfast as a service offering “Air Bed and Breakfast” to other designers coming to town who could not find available rooms in a hotel.
Thus from there, the initial name.
Yet, as Airbnb joined the Winter 2009 batch of the popular accelerator, YC, Paul Graham, founder of YC, suggested the founders change the name from Airbedandbreakfast to Airbnb – before demo day – as the name sounded better.
Airbnb is a two-sided marketplace where hosts and guests transact via its booking platform. Thus, Airbnb makes money by charging a fee on top of hosts and guests when a transaction goes through. For instance, in 2022, Airbnb generated $8.4 billion in transaction rate, with an average take rate of 13.3%.
The Airbnb story began in 2008 when two friends shared their accommodation with three travelers looking for a place to stay. Just over a decade later, it is estimated that the company now accounts for over 20% of the vacation rental industry. As a travel platform, Airbnb competes with other brands like Booking.com, VRBO, FlipKey, and given its massive amount of traffic from Google. Also, platforms like Google Travel can be considered potential competitors able to cannibalize part of Airbnb’s market.
As a peer-to-peer platform, once the transaction between host and guest goes through, Airbnb will collect a fee from both key players. For example, from a $100 booking per night set by the host, Airbnb might collect $3 as a hosting fee. While it might increase the price for the guest at $116 ($16 above the price set by the host) to collect its guest fees of $12 and taxes for the remaining amount.
In 2022, Airbnb generated $63.2 billion in gross booking value on over 393.7 Million Nights and Experiences Booked, an average revenue per booking of $161, $8.4 in revenue, and an average service fee of 13.3%.
Airbnb take rate is the percentage fee that the company gathers from hosts and guests on each booking that happens through the platform. The take rate for Airbnb fluctuated over the years, with a peak in 2020, at a 14.1% take rate and a 13.3% take rate in 2022.
Airbnb makes money by collecting a take rate on each transaction on the platform. In 2022, Airbnb processed over $63 billion in gross booking value, which translated into $8.4 billion in revenue. Airbnb also generated $1.9 billion in profits, and $3.4 billion in free cash flow in 2022.
Airbnb is primarily owned by its co-founders: Brian Chesky, with 76,407,686 Class B shares, which gives him 29.1% of ownership; Nathan Blecharczyk, with 232,306 Class A and 64,646,713 Class B, which give him 25.3%, and Joe Gebbia, which has 5,113,865 Class A and 58,023,452 Class B, which give him 22.9% ownership.
A storyboard is a linear sequence of illustrations used in animation to develop a broader story. A storyboard process is now used also in business to understand and map customers’ experience and enable the growth of the company using that process.
Airbnb arbitrage is a business model where the renter of a house or apartment sub-lets the property to Airbnb users. This is a model where the Airbnb arbitrageur can transform a long-term rental, with the main property owner, into a short-term rental, with higher rates and margins.
An accessory dwelling unit (ADU) is a term used to describe a secondary house or apartment located on the same plot of land as a larger, primary place of residence. This has become an industry for its own sake, with the potential to become the next trillion-dollar industry.
Samara is a manufacturer of prefab accessory dwelling units (ADUs) that can be installed and operational in a matter of hours. It started as an R&D unit of Airbnb in 2016. And it eventually was spun off and run by Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia, who now runs it full-time.
Booking Holdings is the company the controls six main brands that comprise Booking.com, priceline.com, KAYAK, agoda.com, Rentalcars.com, and OpenTable. Over 76% of the company revenues in 2017 came primarily via travel reservations commissions and travel insurance fees. Almost 17% came from merchant fees, and the remaining revenues came from advertising earned via KAYAK. As a distributionstrategy, the company spent over $4.5 billion in performance-based and brand advertising.
Trivago is a search and discovery travel platform part of Expedia Group. Trivago is widely known as a trusted hotel comparison service. Trivago doesn’t charge based on bookings but rather through a cost-per-click (CPC) model, monetized when a hotel searcher clicks one of its advertiser listings. This referral revenue comprises most of Trivago’s income. Trivago also has another minor revenue stream via subscriptions to its Business Studio, a tool that helps hoteliers track impression and click data associated with their properties.
Born in 1996 as a travel platform of Microsoft, it would be spun off later on. Expedia became among the largest online travel agencies (OTAs) which comprise a set of brands that go from Hotels.com, Vrbo, Orbits, CheapTickets, ebookers, Travelocity, Trivago, and others. The company follows a multi-brandstrategy.
Kayak is an online travel agency and search engine founded in 2004 by Steve Hafner and Paul M. English as a Travel Search Company and acquired by Booking Holdings in 2013 for $2.1 billion. The company makes money via an advertising model based on cost per click, cost per acquisition, and advertising placements.
OpenTable is an American online restaurant reservation system founded by Chuck Templeton. During the late 90s, it provided one of the first automated, real-time reservation systems. The company was acquired by Booking Holding back in 2014, for $2.6 billion. Today OpenTable makes money via subscription plans, referral fees, and in-dining with its first restaurant, as an experiment in Miami, Florida.
OYO’s business model is a mixture of platform and brand, where the company started primarily as an aggregator of homes across India, and it quickly moved to other verticals, from leisure to co-working and corporate travel. In a sort of octopus business strategy of expansion to cover the whole spectrum of short-term real estate.
TripAdvisor’s business model matches the demand for people looking for a travel experience with supply from travel partners around the world providing travel accommodations and experiences. When this match is created TripAdvisor collects commission from partners on a CPC and CPM basis. The non-hotel revenue comprises experiences, restaurants, and rentals.
Trivago is a search and discovery travel platform part of Expedia Group. Trivago is widely known as a trusted hotel comparison service. Trivago doesn’t charge based on bookings but rather through a cost-per-click (CPC) model, monetized when a hotel searcher clicks one of its advertiser listings. This referral revenue comprises most of Trivago’s income. Trivago also has another minor revenue stream via subscriptions to its Business Studio, a tool that helps hoteliers track impression and click data associated with their properties.
Gennaro is the creator of FourWeekMBA, which reached about four million business people, comprising C-level executives, investors, analysts, product managers, and aspiring digital entrepreneurs in 2022 alone | He is also Director of Sales for a high-tech scaleup in the AI Industry | In 2012, Gennaro earned an International MBA with emphasis on Corporate Finance and Business Strategy.
