Grubhub Joins Aggregators Making Play for Extended-Stay Guests’ Spending

As aggregators look for new ways to drive adoption, Grubhub is going after the extended-stay hospitality market with a new partnership, teaming with Homewood Suites by Hilton to offer delivery at close to 500 of the hospitality chain’s locations.

The aggregator announced the partnership Thursday (June 8), sharing that guests at locations without in-hotel restaurants will have the option to order from their rooms. Guests will receive free one-month trials of the delivery marketplace’s Grubhub+ subscription program.

“Travel and food go hand-in-hand, and we’re excited to work with Hilton to be their go-to meal delivery provider and make it easier for guests to discover new restaurants from the comfort of their room,” said Grubhub Chief Operations Officer Eric Ferguson in a statement. “Whether a guest is craving a meal, wants a quick snack or needs an item they may have forgotten at home, they’ll be able to access Grubhub’s robust network of restaurants and convenience stores at the touch of a button.”

PYMNTS research found that travel and food do go hand-in-hand, especially when it comes to digital engagement. According to data from the study “How the World Does Digital: Daily Digital Engagement Hits New Heights,” a 10% increase in engagement with digital travel activities drives a 6.5% rise in restaurant-related digital activities.

The news comes as Grubhub leverages a range of partnerships with major brands to drive adoption, looking to close the gap between itself and the United States’ two most popular aggregators, DoorDash and Uber Eats. The company extended its partnership with Amazon Monday (June 5), offering free subscriptions to Prime members for one or two years (depending on when they sign up), and Grubhub continues to offer free yearlong subscriptions to Bank of America cardholders.

PYMNTS’ Provider Ranking of Aggregators, which ranks key players based on a range of factors, including channel coverage, up-to-date downloads, monthly average users, sessions per user and average session length, lists DoorDash at No. 1, with the aggregator winning across all metrics, while Uber Eats sits at No. 2. Grubhub, for its part, is at No. 13, behind a range of grocery aggregators and international players.

Grubhub is not the only aggregator to announce a major hospitality partnership targeting the needs of extended-stay guests this spring. In April, Shipt, the Target-owned aggregator that provides on-demand delivery of groceries, daily essentials and other items, announced partnerships with several hospitality companies to offer trial memberships to guests.

The move enables the aggregator to seize on these travelers’ demand for easy ways to create some sense of stability or familiarity, as Alex Ross, Shipt’s vice president of business development, explained in an interview with PYMNTS.

“Through these new hospitality partnerships, we’ve found that more traveling workers and extended stay guests seek the same stability of routine shopping and reliability of last-minute shopping solutions … whether they are close to home or farther than usual,” Ross said. “For example, customers may have a coffee preference or dietary need first thing in the morning.”

Indeed, the same “How the World Does Digital” study found that digitally engaged travelers are also more likely to shop and purchase groceries online. That same 10% increase in digital travel activities yielded a 6.9% rise in online shopping and a 6.7% bump in online grocery activities.