The 10 Most Highly Compensated Hotel CEOs of 2014
Skift Take
A CEO's pay package is one barometer to measure the strength of a company and it looks like Marriott, Wyndham and Hilton are pleased with their 2014 financials. Starwood's former CEO Frits van Paasschen made out well too but with the company's growth problems there's no telling what the new CEO's package will look like for 2015.
Wynn Resorts CEO Steve Wynn repeated as the most highly compensated hotel CEO in 2014 while his casino-resort peers at Las Vegas Sands and MGM Resorts fell in the rankings compared with 2013.
Skift examined the financial filings of publicly listed hotel companies and came up with a list of the top 10 hospitality CEO pay packages of 2014 [see below], ranging from top-earner Wynn Resorts CEO Steve Wynn’s $25.3 million to Choice Hotel's CEO Stephen Joyce's $5.3 million at number 10.
Most hotel CEOs saw bigger pay packages in 2014 with the exception of MGM Resorts CEO James Murren's small decrease of $800,000. Wynn's total compensation package increased a whopping 29.2% to $25.3 million.
There's been some shake-up in the list of most highly compensated CEOs since Skift first compiled the list last year. Wynn was still the overall top-earning hospitality CEO in 2014 but the CEOs of Starwood, Marriott and Wyndham all earned more than the Las Vegas Sands and MGM Resorts' CEOs who were third and fourth, respectively in 2013. The CEOs of Marriott and Wyndham each collected more than $14 million in total compensation.
Marriott CEO Arne Sorenson knocked Wyndham CEO Stephen Holmes out of the top earning hotel CEO spot last year as the Marriott board awarded Sorenson additional equity for his "performance since becoming CEO." That award is conditionally linked to maintaining strong annual room gro
