Marriott International's CEO has dismissed industry concerns over offering members of its loyalty programme free wifi but only if they book direct.
In November Marriott announced plans to provide free wifi to all 47 million members of its loyalty programme but only if they book direct through the hotel group's channels.
This led to concerns from travel buyers and organisations in the industry that it will further encourage travellers to book out of policy and could damage Marriott's relationships with many corporates.
However, in an interview with BBT, chief executive Arne Sorenson defended the decision and said the worries from buyers aren't "significant" as most contracts will have a wifi offer built in.
Sorenson also said he wanted to reward those travellers who go direct as they have a greater potential for loyalty.
"[The wifi] piece will not turn out to be significant," said Sorenson. "If you are a meaningful corporate customer and we have a corporate rate with you, which will often be the case, it will be reasonably clear that your employees are going to get free wifi. The top percentage of corporate accounts get it anyway.
"Everybody would like free wifi and would like it at whatever speed is possible and hotels are racing to make sure they’ve got enough bandwidth to bring it in.
"In the U.S we all expect free wifi in hotels but we all pay a lot at home. If you think about our personal telecommunications bills, we’re all paying a lot, and yet when we get to the hotel somehow it’s free. So there is some familiarity with the need to pay in some places, but no one really likes to pay. The irony is that the lower tier brands it’s been free and the higher tier you’ve paid for it."
He added: "We want to deliver value to customers who are coming to us direct who have a potential for higher loyalty to us, so now we can do that."
The full interview with the Marriott CEO is available here.
Click here to read how technology is helping hotels drive direct bookings.