Marriott announced that they will be buying Starwood Hotels this morning. This comes on the heels of Starwood announcing that SLS Las Vegas will be a part of their Tribute Collection last week (see article on Travel Zork). Part of the SLS connection is that Starwood would be changing the Lux tower at SLS into W Las Vegas.
A Starwood sale wasn’t a secret but Hyatt was becoming the favorite to buy them (see article on Travel Zork). This deal was made because most of Marriott’s rooms before the purchase were in the United States. About 2/3rds of Starwood hotel rooms are outside of the United States. Marriott now has 1.1 million hotel rooms around the world.
Back to Vegas.
Starwood’s biggest connection with Vegas is through its current affiliation with Caesars Entertainment. The SLS program will begin in December and W Las Vegas will open mid-late 2016. Marriott’s current Vegas Strip affiliation is with the Cosmopolitan. Since the Cosmo was sold last year it’s been rumored that they will eventually join Hilton in some way.
Might the Cosmopolitan become a Starwood hotel? I know at least one person that will lose his mind if that happens.
Details on the merger of the programs haven’t been released yet. The press release is more financially driven. It’s possible, but unlikely, that Starwood and Marriott will remain separate brands that would keep their individual loyalty programs.
The deal isn’t expected to be completed until sometime in 2016. Unless relationships change these are the hotels on the Vegas Strip that will become Marriott hotels:
- Bally’s
- Caesars Palace
- Cosmopolitan
- The Cromwell
- Flamingo
- Harrah’s
- The Linq
- Paris
- Planet Hollywood
- Rio
- SLS Las Vegas
- W Las Vegas
Marriott would be the hotel partner for almost half of the hotels on the Vegas Strip (12 of 26 or so). That’s kind of a big deal. Look forward to more information to follow next year.
PS: Starwood Hotels and Starwood Capital are not the same company. This old rumor is probably just be a coincidence.
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I think it’s a bit of a stretch to say they will become “Marriott hotels” considering SPG is currently just a rewards partner. I would think Marriott takes a good look at the Caesars relationship. These companies don’t seem to be very keen on getting into the casino business.
Correct, besides W Las Vegas these are just loyalty relationships. All of those casinos would not be owned by Marriott. I thought that was clear. Maybe I need more coffee. 🙂