09/23/2016

Note from OSAE Affiliate Member Marriott International

The company has completed its acquisition of Starwood Hotels & Resorts

This morning, the Ohio Society of Association Executives (OSAE) was informed of Marriott International's completed acquisition of Starwood Hotels & Resorts and its brands. The following is a message from Arne Sorenson, the president and CEO of Marriott International, Inc.

Today, we begin a new chapter at Marriott International as we welcome Starwood Hotels & Resorts and its brands into the Marriott family—creating the world’s largest hotel company. The numbers alone speak for themselves: the new Marriott portfolio now has over 5,700 properties in more than 110 countries.

More brands and more choices is a powerful statement. But what excites us the most is the opportunities this gives our customers. Our newly combined organization strengthens our ability to serve you - wherever your journey may take you.

Our customers are at the core of what we do and how we do it. You book our hotels, you introduce today’s travelers to our brands and you help shape our latest innovations—for which we are truly grateful. As such, we remain committed to providing exceptional sales service, unique brand programming and an expanding footprint as we grow our network and navigate today’s evolving travel landscape together.

Now, with the legal close of the acquisition, we are eager to build upon the very best of our organizations to create the premier company in travel. We now have the ability to refer booking opportunities across our full portfolio of 30 brands. In addition, we are building bridges between our powerful loyalty programs by allowing members to link their Marriott Rewards, The Ritz-Carlton Rewards and Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) accounts; receive a status level match across Rewards and SPG; and transfer points between programs in order to redeem across the combined portfolio. For more information, visit our new site: members.marriott.com.

We want to ensure a seamless transition for all our customers. In many respects, it will be business as usual for some months to come. For example, Marriott and Starwood sales teams will continue to sell their respective brands and accounts through 2016. And our Rewards and SPG programs will continue to operate as separate entities for some time—we don’t anticipate combining the programs until 2018.

Your Marriott and Starwood account teams will continue to work closely with you as we proceed with integration. We rely on your feedback to inform every step of this process, so please continue to ask questions and share those insights along the way. On behalf of all our brands, hotels, and associates, thank you for your business and your incredible partnership.

To read the official announcement, please click here.