Dive Brief:
- Marriott International added 43 million new members to the Marriott Bonvoy loyalty program in 2025, ending the year with 271 million members, executives said on a Q4 2025 earnings report Tuesday.
- Since the launch of Marriott Bonvoy in February 2019, the penetration of the loyalty program has grown from 58% to 68%, according to CFO and EVP of Development Leeny Oberg. Marriott Bonvoy is a rebranding of the old Marriott Rewards program.
- Marriott has fueled the growth of its loyalty program with partnerships with companies like Uber and Starbucks, according to President and CEO Anthony Capuano. Features like Envoy Moments, which lets customers redeem points for unique experiences, play a role as well.
Dive Insight:
Marriott expects AI to help the company continue elevating its CX from the room booking experience to beyond.
The company is excited about AI’s ability to personalize and simplify the travel search and booking experience, Capuano said. “We see AI as an opportunity to potentially redefine the customer acquisition paradigm that has governed our industry for the past several decades.”
AI will find a home in the Marriott Bonvoy ecosystem. The company plans to deploy natural language search on marriott.com and its loyalty app in the first half of 2026, according to Capuano.
Marriott is entering partnerships with third-party AI platforms as well, including working with Google to be part of the Google AI mode travel planning feature and with OpenAI on its Ad Pilot program. OpenAI is testing ads in the lower tier subscriptions of its ChatGPT software.
“What I would say to you is philosophically, we are working very closely and very collaboratively with the subject matter experts, the biggest, most innovative and creative companies in the space, both to learn from them but also to shape or have some word in shaping this evolving distribution landscape,” Capuato said.
The tech investments and partnerships are part of a multiyear transformation at Marriott that is already underway. The company has made automating high-cost processes and improving experiences two of its key priorities.
Marriott's fourth quarter earnings were largely positive. The hotel company saw global revenue per available room increase 1.9% year over year in the fourth quarter of 2025, according to an earnings report.
