Marriott’s Venture into Vacation Rentals: The Story Behind Launching Homes & Villas

2024-02-02

Meet Chris Stephenson, Vice President of Global Development at Marriott Homes & Villas. Chris has spent his career building new, innovative products and services across travel and hospitality. In February of 2019, Chris was a part of the founding team of Marriott Homes & Villas and in charge of thinking through how best to bring Marriott’s vacation rental home product to life. In this episode, Chris and I discuss: What it’s like incubating a new product offering within a legacy business

Meet Chris Stephenson, Vice President of Global Development at Marriott Homes & Villas.

Chris has spent his career building new, innovative products and services across travel and hospitality.

In February of 2019, Chris was a part of the founding team of Marriott Homes & Villas and in charge of thinking through how best to bring Marriott’s vacation rental home product to life.

In this episode, Chris and I discuss:

What it’s like incubating a new product offering within a legacy business
Why Marriott Homes & Villas has had a different business model from Airbnb since Day 1
How Homes & Villas has grown from a couple of thousand listings to a couple hundred thousand listings in just the last couple of years
How Bonvoy, Marriott’s loyalty program, has played a roll in accelerating usage of Homes & Villas
And what the product roadmap for Homes & Villas looks like in 2024 and beyond

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About the Show

Behind the Stays is brought to you twice a week by Sponstayneous — a free, biweekly newsletter that brings subscribers the best last-minute deals and upcoming steals on Airbnb.

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Behind the Stays is hosted by Zach Busekrus, co-founder of Sponstayneous, you can connect with him on Twitter at @zboozee.

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