Reimagining Marriott Bonvoy As A Hub For Travel Content And Commerce
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The Vision
As people began traveling again in late 2021 and early 2022, the impact of the pandemic on travel behaviors was apparent, from remote work to increased market share of Airbnb and VRBO. Most significantly, business travel (hotel blocks, conference rooms, etc.), a significant component of Marriott’s revenue, was not following the same rebound as leisure travel.
We collaborated with core Product Leads to create integrated Leisure offerings across hotels, deals, vacation packages, resorts, and more; transforming Marriott digital from a fragmented promotion of their diverse offerings to an integrated product experience that contextualized their different brands and products at the intersection of content and commerce.
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The Challenge
To execute this vision, we started with highly visited Destination Detail pages, transforming them from cookie cutter hotel listing pages to SEO-powered resources for leisure travelers to get answers in proximity to Marriott’s booking engine. Working with teams across product, content, editorial, and design, we reimagined this page as true travel guides, bringing destinations to life through immersive visuals, neighborhood-level information that also promotes nearby Marriott locations, deals, spas and more, and building a human connection via quick facts that most travelers would normally go off-site to get answers to.
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Our Accomplishments
Through collaboration with Marriott’s UX and design teams, we evolved the current design system to be more modern and immersive while staying true to the core, strong brand identity of Marriott Bonvoy. Lastly, we worked together with Marriott Bonvoy engineers throughout the development process to ensure accurate translation and implementation of our new templates and components.
Mobile-First
Knowing nearly 75% of Marriott’s web traffic comes from mobile, we prioritized a rich visual phone experience that immersed users in their potential destinations and allowed them to envision themselves there.
Contextualized Conversion
85% of consumer regularly or occasionally seek out expert content while making travel decisions — and rather than send users off-site, we built several features that contextualized Marriott properties against recommendations and information around neighborhoods, sights and landmarks, and itineraries—leveraging Marriott’s unmatched decades of knowledge to drive users down funnel.
