Netflix is now available at Marriott, so good luck ever leaving your hotel room
Whether you invited Frank Underwood to share your hotel room or not, he's going to. And so is Kimmy Schmidt, the inmates from Orange is the New Black and the guy on Hoarders who had a thousand cats behind his sofa. Marriott has just announced a partnership with Netflix that will bring everyone's favorite binge-watching delivery service into its hotels, making it the first hotel chain to do so. By the end of 2015, more than 100 Marriott locations will have Netflix and, by the end of 2016, it will be available in all 300 of the hotel's U.S. properties.
According to Fast Company, Marriott has studied how its guests – especially those over 35 – use technology during their hotel stays. The company quickly learned that guests are no longer as enthusiastic about paying inflated prices to watch in-room movies (maybe not even the late-night Spectravision kind) and are instead choosing to entertain themselves on whichever electronics, laptops or tablets they travel with. To test its theory, Marriott put several streaming apps on the in-room televisions in several locations and learned that more than 25% of people logged on and that the majority of them opted for Netflix over other services like Hulu or Amazon Prime.
Netflix is currently available in six Marriott locations (including one hotel on Manhattan's East Side) and will be coming to six other hotels in six other cities before the full roll-out begins. In a statement, Matthew Carroll, Marriott's Vice President of Brand Management, said:
Our collaboration with Netflix responds to changing consumer preferences in the way our guests access and watch content, while recognizing the leading role Netflix is playing in driving this transformation. Because consumers are choosing to take their streaming content with them when they travel, Marriott Hotels is making the industry’s first rollout of Netflix a priority.
Only current subscribers can access the Netflix content, but those who'd like to share their vacation with a dozen throw pillows and a guaranteed Oscar winner called Zombeavers can sign up for a 30-day free trial through the hotel televisions. So suck it, outside world.