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Hotel projects by the thousands
- September 1, 2019: Vol. 6, Number 8

Hotel projects by the thousands

by Andrea Zander

The franchise companies leading the U.S. hotel construction pipeline are Marriott International with 1,469 projects (193,458 rooms), up 9 percent by projects and rooms year-over-year, according to Lodging Econometrics (LE), followed by Hilton Worldwide with 1,372 projects (152,853 rooms), a 3 percent increase over 2018, and InterContinental Hotels Group with has 962 projects (97,647 rooms), also up 3 percent by projects and rooms compared with the year past.

The leading brands in the construction pipeline for each of these three companies are Home2 Suites by Hilton with 413 projects, InterContinental Hotel’s Holiday Inn Express with 410 projects, and Marriott’s Fairfield Inn with 300 projects rooms, totaling 111,000 rooms.

In the first half of 2019, 70 percent of the new hotels that opened in the United States belonged to Marriott, Hilton or InterContinental. Marriott opened 120 new hotels, Hilton opened 125 and InterContinental 69 new hotels, totaling 37,400 rooms.

The LE forecast for new hotel openings in 2020 anticipates that Marriott will open 285 projects, Hilton 274 projects, and InterContinental 211 projects, with a project total of 87,000 rooms. Taken out another year, the 2021 forecast calls for 328 new hotels from Marriott, 284 from InterContinental, and 268 by Hilton, accounting for another 98,000 rooms.

Should the LE forecast come to pass, 73 percent of all new hotels in 2021 will belong to the three companies, continuing their dominance of the lodging industry.

In other news, Marriott announced plans to build an all-inclusive platform to serve this increasingly popular vacation segment. The company also announced that it has signed management contracts with hotel developers who plan to build five new all-inclusive resorts, investing more than $800 million and demonstrating their confidence in Marriott International’s scale, loyalty platform and operational expertise. The resorts are expected to open between 2022 and 2025.

“It will provide the ownership community a game-changing value proposition for their luxury and premium resort projects around the world, while providing guests a new vacation option with brands they trust,” said Tony Capuano, Marriott International’s executive vice president and global chief development officer.

The new platform will provide the company’s 133 million Marriott Bonvoy members the option to earn and redeem points for this convenient, pay-one-price concept.

 

Andrea Zander  is editor of Institutional Real Estate Newsline.

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