According to Marriott International, global business travel has returned to near-pre-pandemic levels, albeit with an interesting shift.
“You are seeing overall occupancy of our global system as being higher than 2019 levels… But Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday are still the nights whose occupancy has not recovered, while the other nights of the week are actually higher occupancy than we had pre-Covid,” remarked Leeny Oberg, Marriott’s CFO.
A post on Investopedia noted that the international hotelier’s executives cite the reason for this partly due to the changes to global work policies that have changed staffing needs and travel requirements.
“The small- and medium-sized businesses came back faster than the largest corporates. You still see their nights meaningfully behind 2019 levels, although I will say that some other of those large corporates like in the financing sector of the economy, they are actually back,” highlighted Leeny.
Marriott’s Q4-24 and FY-24 results show that RevPAR increased 5% YoY, which is said to be above analysts’ expectations.
“In the fourth quarter, worldwide RevPAR rose 5%, driven by gains in both ADR and occupancy. International RevPAR increased by more than 7%, with APEC and EMEA leading the way and benefiting from strong leisure demand. RevPAR in the US and Canada rose more than 4%, the region’s highest RevPAR increase of the year, with all customer segments growing versus the prior-year quarter,” said Anthony Capuano, President and CEO of Marriott.
Marriott signed a record number of new deals in 2024 that saw its development pipeline reaching over 577,000 rooms at the end of the year.
Image caption: Johannesburg Marriott Hotel Melrose Arch (image via Marriott)
