Marriott International reported a 6.8% year-over-year increase in revenue per available room and 3.5% year-over-year increase in average daily rate for the first quarter 2012 on Thursday.
Arne Sorenson, president and CEO, said, "Results were terrific in the first quarter of 2012. There is tremendous strength in global travel today; travelers are on the road, attending meetings, making sales calls and taking family vacations.
"Group business strengthened in the first quarter with increasing occupancy, room rates and greater group spend on food, beverage and other services,” he continued. “Transient business was also strong. Revenue from special corporate guests increased over 9% in the quarter with increasing room rates. Our largest customers tell us they expect to travel more in 2012.”
Marriott has 115,000 rooms under construction, awaiting conversion or approved for development, including more than 51,000 rooms outside North America. The company opened 3,200 rooms during the quarter, including 950 rooms converted from competitor brands.
Marriott raised the stakes for other C-Corps by increasing its full-year RevPAR guidance from 5%-7% to 6%-8%, said David Loeb, senior analyst at Robert W. Baird, in a research note. Given the still-sluggish debt financing environment, Marriott introduced a lower bound to its 2012 unit growth forecast to 25,000 to 30,000 rooms, Loeb said. He said full-year EBITDA and EPS are also “increasing moderately.”
With a recently unified leadership team and a new refresh under development, Azimut Hotels is poised for another decade of fast and furious expansion throughout its home base in Russia and Europe, writes HotelNewsNow.com’s Patrick Mayock.
The Moscow-based hotel chain, which owns, leases, manages and/or franchises 22 mid-market hotels comprising more than 5,500 rooms, was founded in 2004 when Russian private investor Alexander Klyachin purchased his first property in Samara.
Klyachin, who now serves as company chairman, saw a need for reliable accommodations for a growing class of Russian business travelers. Through an aggressive acquisition spree, he built the portfolio up to approximately 3,000 rooms within four years.
Both weekly and monthly performance numbers for the United States were released today by HotelNewsNow.com’s parent company STR.
The economy chain-scale segment reported the largest increase in RevPAR during March, according to data from STR. The segment’s RevPAR rose 8.8% to $28, its average daily rate was up 5.1% to $50.70 and its occupancy rose 3.5% to 55.2%.
Overall, the U.S. hotel industry’s occupancy rose 4% to 63.6%, its ADR was up 3.9% to $105.91 and its RevPAR increased 8% to $67.38.
For the week of 8-14 April, Norfolk-Virginia Beach, Virginia, achieved the largest increases in both occupancy and RevPAR, according to data from STR. The market’s occupancy rose 18.6% to 65%, its RevPAR jumped 30.4% to $53.90 and its average daily rate was up 10% to $82.93.
Overall, the U.S. hotel industry’s occupancy fell 1.5%to 62.1%, ADR increased 0.8% to $103.17 and RevPAR ended the week virtually flat with a 0.7% decrease to $64.09.
A 45-story luxury hotel Baccarat is being developed in New York by Starwood Capital and Tribeca Associates, according to the New York Post.
It appears the building will feature approximately 120 hotel rooms on floors four to 12 and luxury condos above. The development is set to open in 2014, and its total cost is $400 million.
Baccarat hotels are managed by Starwood Capital subsidiary SH Group. The company operates a residences property in Shanghai and is set to open a hotel and residences property in Dubai in 2013.
Chesapeake Lodging Trust, Hersha Hospitality Trust and Pebblebrook Hotel Trust are the best real-estate investment trusts positioned to deliver strong results as first-quarter earnings results are released, based on the fact that U.S. RevPAR growth was 7.9% and the top 25 markets outperformed, said David Loeb, senior analyst at Robert W. Baird, in a research note.
RevPAR growth in San Francisco (14.9%), Chicago (14.4%) and Boston (12.2%) will directly benefit Chesapeake, which has the highest pro-rata rooms exposure to San Francisco and Boston, and among the highest to Chicago, Loeb said.
RevPAR growth of 7.5% in New York—combined with Manhattan experiencing below-market supply growth—will set up Hersha and Pebblebrook nicely, Loeb said. Forty-five percent of Hersha's EBITDA is derived from New York and Pebblebrook's pro-rata EBITDA concentration to Manhattan is 23%, the highest among the full-service REITs.
Compiled by Jason Q. Freed.
