The latest total includes 242 properties with roughly 40,300 rooms approved for development, but not yet subject to signed contracts. Quarter on quarter, the overall amount grew by 4% in terms of hotels and 2% for keys, from Q2’s 3,100 sites and 547,000 rooms.
Construction rate
Marriott’s pipeline also encompasses 1,081 properties with approximately 238,000 rooms under construction, or 43%, including approximately 37,000 rooms related to its deal with MGM Resorts International.
As such, the company now expects full year 2023 net rooms growth of 4.2 to 4.5% higher than its 2 August 2023 guidance when excluding the MGM rooms.
Network profile
Marriott added 97 properties (17,192 rooms) to its worldwide lodging portfolio during the 2023 third quarter, including roughly 13,000 keys in international markets and more than 4,900 conversion rooms. Eleven properties (1,494 rooms) exited the system during the quarter.
At the end of the quarter, Marriott’s global lodging system totalled nearly 8,700 properties, with approximately 1,581,000 keys.
Strong demand
Anthony Capuano, president and CEO, analysed: “Given the meaningful benefits we deliver to owners, demand for our brands remains strong. Through the first three quarters of 2023, we’ve signed more than 100,000 organic rooms, including the MGM Resorts International deal, an impressive 60% increase compared to the same period last year.
“Even with 5% net room growth in the last four quarters, our development pipeline continues to grow. During the quarter, our pipeline reached a new high of nearly 557,000 rooms, a record even excluding the MGM rooms. Strong interest in conversions continues, including multi‐unit opportunities. Conversions represented 20% of signings and nearly 30% of openings in the quarter.”
Midscale opportunity
Capuano examined further expansion options, saying: “We are very excited about the global opportunity for midscale. We have real momentum with the City Express brand in CALA, Four Points Express in Europe, and StudioRes in the US, with terrific interest across the development community.
“We already have ten signed letters of intent for City Express in CALA, nine of which are in new countries for the brand, four signed deals for Four Points Express in Turkiye and in London, and we’re in numerous additional discussions for both brands. And while we just recently issued the franchise disclosure documents for StudioRes, we are already in talks for deals in over 300 markets across the US We expect there will be shovels in the ground for StudioRes projects in the next few months.”
