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Then they would have required offering specific products. It would not require prohibiting other products. Edit: to respond to tomnipotent: I don’t see why

Then they would have required offering specific products. It would not require prohibiting other products. Edit: to respond to tomnipotent: I don’t see why a distributor is relevant. There are myriad to choose from. Hotel owners/operators can buy from the local Coke/Pepsi/whatever distributor, or Sam’s/Costco/grocery store, or Restaurant Depot/US Foods, etc. Edit 2: note that IHG is not buying the beverages to sell in the franchised hotel, the IHG franchisees are. IHG does not suffer any costs from making an exclusive deal with Coke, or not making an exclusive deal with Coke.

tomnipotent 3y ago
> It would not require prohibiting other products. You're forgetting about distribution and margin. Your distributor is unlikely to offer both choices, and keeping the original product means selling less of the new so you're getting less favorable volume deals with both. For the hotel, it makes sense to concentrate that sales volume into a single contract for better discounts.
bombcar 3y ago
It's definitely possible, and I've seen it done, but obviously for most businesses that have to answer the "coke or Pepsi" question pick one. Nothing is really preventing having both in the same soda machine, but it's rare enough that there must be a reason, likely exclusivity deals and discounts. Gas stations will usually have both, for example. Fast food places won't.