Starwood Founder Invests in HotelTonight

Barry Sternlicht, the CEO of investment firm Starwood Capital Group and the founder of Starwood Hotels & Resorts, has reportedly invested in the popular mobile app HotelTonight.

Sternlicht will also become strategic advisor for HotelTonight, the world’s leading hotel booking app.

Co-founder and COO of HotelTonight Jared Simon said, per the Yahoo! report:

"To have a visionary like Barry Sternlicht backing and advising HotelTonight is a powerful validation of the work the HotelTonight team and our top tier network of hotel partners have put into revolutionizing the travel industry. With his support and the addition of several chains to the app, we're proving that the hotelier-distributor relationship doesn't need to be adversarial but can actually be mutually beneficial."

The HotelTonight app has received nearly nine million downloads since its inception in January 2011. The company has raised more than $80 million in funding, collaborating with 10,000 hotel partners in 250 worldwide locations spanning 17 countries.

Sternlicht said, per the report:

"Booking windows are shrinking and customers are going mobile, trends which position HotelTonight perfectly for the future. But there's something more that attracted me—it's that HotelTonight is proving booking by booking that both hotels and distributors can win. HotelTonight is a refreshing alternative that should become a major participant in the future of hotel distribution."

Sternlicht, who was CEO of Starwood Hotels & Resorts from 1995 to 2005, helped build a brand that now boasts nearly 900 properties in 100 countries. “The King of Hotels” also created boutique brand W Hotels. According to the Yahoo! report, Starwood Capital Group will be introducing two new hotel brands later this year: 1 Hotels & Resorts and Baccarat Hotels & Resorts.

The details of Sternlicht’s investment with HotelTonight are not known as of this writing.

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