BETHESDA, MD- The Marriott chain of hotels has signed an exclusive fleet management deal with ING Car Lease, assigning it to take care of its contract hire, risk management, accident management, and vehicle rental requirements, according to Car Hire News.

Marriot, which owns nearly 60 hotels across Ireland and the UK, currently operates a fleet of about 220 cars, with a handful of light commercial vehicles, which would also be covered under the new contract.

The fleet will eventually be transferred to ING when vehicles reach the end of their four-year contact hire cycle.  All new cars would be operated under the same four-year term.

Corporate account manager for ING Car Lease, Hilary Martin, said that many more businesses were fully outsourcing elements of their fleet management function as a way of cutting out inefficiencies and reducing costs.

She went on to say that with increasing awareness of the need to manage the grey fleet more proactively, there was also a rise seen in the number of fleets seeing innovative ways to reduce exposure to risk in that area, according to Car Hire News.