The company added a record 86,000 gross rooms and 517 properties in 2021, achieving net rooms’ growth of approximately 4 per cent for year

On the eve of the Americas Lodging Investment Summit (ALIS) in Los Angeles, Marriott International, Inc. (NASDAQ: MAR) announced a strong year of rooms’ growth and signings in 2021. The company also provided insight into major trends it sees currently impacting global hospitality development. These trends helped drive Marriott’s growth in 2021 and are expected to propel the company’s growth over the next several years.

At the end of 2021, Marriott’s worldwide system consisted of nearly 8,000 properties and roughly 1.48 million rooms in 139 countries and territories. At year-end, the company had the largest global development pipeline, with roughly 485,000 rooms. The company signed 599 agreements during 2021 representing approximately 92,000 rooms of which slightly more than half are located outside of US and Canada. Rooms falling out of the pipeline remain at historically low levels, despite challenges brought on by the pandemic. During 2021, Marriott added more than 86,000 rooms on a gross basis, growing the system 3.9 per cent, including deletions of 2.1 percent. The deletion rate was 1.2 per cent excluding the exit of 88 Service Properties Trust select service hotels.

“Marriott has the benefit of sitting at the intersection of information and insights from a global community of developers, properties, owners and franchisees, as well as the more than 160 million members of our Marriott Bonvoy travel programme,” said Stephanie Linnartz, President, Marriott International, adding, “Our analysis of the prevalent trends in global development is particularly instructive as we continue to recover from this global pandemic. We have been focused on working closely with our valued community of owners and franchisees throughout these unprecedented times. We are pleased with our strong 2021 development results and look forward to continuing to drive value for our owners and franchisees throughout the recovery and beyond with our quality brands, our comprehensive business support systems and industry leading loyalty platform.”

Luxury maintains its momentum
Travellers crave leisure luxury travel experiences seeking iconic destinations and undiscovered locations. Marriott is poised to meet this demand with its unmatched portfolio of seven dynamic luxury brands across 476 hotels spanning 69 countries and territories. In 2021, Marriott International signed 40 luxury hotel deals, representing over 6,000 rooms, and grew its portfolio of luxury hotel rooms by 4.8 per cent net, with notable additions in prime locations around the globe. The company continues to expand its luxury footprint and has by far the largest global pipeline of hotels in this important, high fee earning segment, with nearly 50,000 rooms. Marriott anticipates debuting more than 30 luxury hotels in 2022 in destinations from Mexico (The St Regis Kanai Resort) and Portugal (W Algarve) to Australia (The Ritz-Carlton, Melbourne) and South Korea (JW Marriott Jeju Resort & Spa). 

Leisure boom continues booming
Leisure demand has led the travel recovery, a trend that is expected to continue into 2022, as travelers continue to embrace multi-purpose trips, mixing remote work and vacation time. Leisure transient global room nights were the first to recover to 2019 pre-pandemic levels in the second quarter of 2021. For some time prior to the Covid19 pandemic, leisure travel had been growing at a faster pace than business travel, and according to the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), all signs point to a continuation of the trend. Marriott’s industry leading resort network includes over 600 properties in beach, mountain and desert locations around the world that have seen incredibly high demand and have demonstrated impressive average daily rates.