The 91-year-old Airbnb competitor

Earlier this week, Marriott revealed that it is rolling out an Airbnb-esque service called Homes & Villas, which will allow folks to rent upscale properties through the hotel chain.

The program began last year with a small pilot with homes in London, and now includes 2,000 luxury homes in more than 100 different cities. As the world's largest hotel company, Marriott already has a presence in 40 of these markets. With Homes & Villas, the chain is expanding to hard-to-reach destinations like the Amalfi Coast, North Lake Tahoe and Saint-Tropez.

The luxury homes will all be equipped with Wi-Fi and hotel-equivalent amenities. These properties will really be more of a competitor to Airbnb Plus, which launched last February to offer hotel-like services to its customers.

It seems like Airbnb wants to be more like Marriott, and Marriott wants to be more like Airbnb. 🤔 From the comments:

“Marriott’s challenge (and current strength) is an old-school hospitality mindset rooted in real estate and in-person service, whereas Airbnb focused building on scalable software that connects people. It will be interesting to see if Marriott can scale this efficiently.” - Justin

To start, Marriott is reportedly renting out properties like:

🍷 A four-bedroom cottage on six private acres of California wine country
🌊 An oceanfront villa in Anguilla with a private beach
🏰 An 18th century Irish Castle that sleeps 17 guests

For other unique travel accommodations, you can also try out PlansMatter (for architecture lovers) or Hipcamp (Airbnb for campsites) or Selina (boutique lodging for nomads).

Sooo time for a vacation? ✈️

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