Hotel Groups Deploy Swelling Cash Piles With Varied Playbooks
Photo Caption: The lobby reception area at Marriott International's new headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland. Source: Marriott International.
Skift Take
The big hotel groups sit on a $7 billion cash pile. How they use it, whether it's to acquire properties, improve their offerings, or buy back stocks, will shape their futures.
Global hotel groups are awash in near-record amounts of cash. Seven of the best-known hotel groups were collectively sitting on about $7.3 billion in cash and short-term investments in June, according to a recent wave of financial filings.
How these hotel giants — Accor, Choice, Hilton, Hyatt, IHG (InterContinental Hotels Group), Marriott, and Wyndham — deploy their cash will be of great interest. Stakeholders hoping for some of that cash include property owners looking to sell hotel assets, workers looking for raises, executives hoping for corporate investment in their products, and shareholders hoping that companies repurchase shares to boost stock prices.
Take Marriott International, for example. At the end of last year, it had $1.39 billion in cash and short-term investments, partly as a hangover from building up a cash cushion during the uncertainty of the pandemic. By June 30, it had reduced its cash pile to $546 million.
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