Dive Brief:
- Food delivery company DoorDash will now offer its on-demand delivery service at Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, according to a company blog post.
- Select Super 8, La Quinta, Days Inn and other banners will offer guests a $5 discount and free delivery on their first purchase when they use a special promo code, as well as 250 loyalty program points towards their next hotel reservation, according to Venture Beat.
- DoorDash will be available at more than 3,700 Wyndham hotels in the U.S.
Dive Insight:
This isn't DoorDash's first foray outside of the restaurant space — the platform also teamed with 7-Eleven to deliver a mix of food and household goods a few yeas ago. But bringing delivery to the hotel space seems an especially savvy move for the company.
As early as 2017 a number of Chicago hotels, including The Kinzie Hotel, were exploring partnerships with local restaurants to spice up their menu offerings and to expand meal times. But having to navigate the logistics and delivery aspect of the deal might have been more than the already busy hotels could chew. Tapping a ready-made offering through a third-party service is a turnkey solution for guests' cravings.
And DoorDash isn't the only delivery player to capitalize on this opportunity. Last year, delivery.com partnered with Choice Hotels International and offered loyalty program members additional points when they placed orders through the hotel's app.
Grubhub also partnered with Hyatt Hotels after a successful pilot in 2016, expanding the offering to nine hotel locations in 2017. Part of the impetus for the new offering was expanding menu options and giving guests more flexibility in terms of when they could place orders.
If these partnerships prove to be lucrative for third-party delivery providers, it seems likely that other platforms will seek hospitality deals of their own. To amass market share in the cut-throat delivery fray, services need to differentiate, and for many companies that means exploring opportunities outside of the traditional restaurant space.
Uber Eats, for example, recently announced that it will be delivering food to travelers right at their gate at the Toronto Pearson airport, marking its first-ever airport partnership.
