Marriott Bets Big on Luxury and Extended-Stay Hotels

Marriott International revealed on Monday its full-year totals for hotel development in 2022. The most notable figures highlighted a further push by the world’s largest hotelier into the luxury and extended-stay segments.

The operator of brands such as Ritz Carlton, Bvlgari Hotels, W, and Edition last year signed deals to develop 42 luxury hotels — a company record — adding to its nearly 500 open luxury properties. These luxury hotels represent nearly 8,000 rooms.

Growth in Extended Stay

Marriott also had continued momentum at the lower end of the spectrum in 2022, which represents most of the nearly 8,300 properties it had open worldwide as of late December.

In 2022, the company’s extended stay brands — Residence Inn by Marriott, Element by Westin, and TownePlace Suites by Marriott brands — made up a record 30 percent of the company’s signings.

Interest in extended stay from developers is partly driven by consumers seeking more space, “driven by the blending of work and leisure trips,” Marriott executives said.

“The select service and extended stay segments continue to generate significant growth for the company, particularly in the U.S. and Canada,” said Noah Silverman, global development officer, U.S. & Canada, at the Americas Lodging Investment Summit (ALIS) in Los Angeles.

In 2023, the company will particularly look at “underserved secondary and tertiary markets” for additional extended-stay growth, Silverman said.

Overall, last year was a robust year for Marriott’s pipeline expansion. It signed 726 management and franchise agreements, representing nearly 108,000 rooms. About 20 percent of these deals were conversions rather than new development.

Marriott joins other hotel companies in having a backlog of getting signed hotels built open. Last year, the company only added 394 properties, representing roughly 65,000 rooms, growing its worldwide network by 4.4 percent. But given the enormous size of its pipeline, that rollout could’ve been faster if key inputs for construction and financing hadn’t been disrupted by labor dislocations and rising interest rates.

For more context, see how the great merging between people’s work and personal lives has led Blended Travel to Come of Age, one of Skift’s Megatrends for 2023.

For context on the consumer dynamic driving the boom in luxury, see Skift’s 2023 Megatrend “A New Super Luxury Goes a Step Further.”