PORTSMOUTH, N.H. — According to the Lodging Econometrics (LE) Q4’21 U.S. Construction Pipeline Trend Report, the franchise companies with the largest construction pipelines at year-end are Marriott with 1,345 projects/170,586 rooms, Hilton Worldwide with 1,239 projects/141,053 rooms and InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) with 761 projects/76,987 rooms. Together, these companies account for 69 per cent of projects and 67 per cent of rooms in the total U.S. construction pipeline.
At the end of Q4’21, more than 56 per cent of Hilton’s projects are in the early planning stage, standing at 689 projects/76,058 rooms. Hilton has 228 projects/29,036 rooms under construction and 322 projects/ 35,959 rooms scheduled to start construction in the next 12 months.
Marriott also hit record-high counts for both projects and rooms in early planning, coming in at 534 projects/63,120 rooms. Currently, 262 projects/38,289 rooms are under construction and 549 projects/69,177 rooms are scheduled to start in the next 12 months.
Finally, IHG currently has 121 projects/11,376 rooms in the early planning stage. Hotels under construction stand at 136/16,221 rooms while 504 projects/49,390 rooms are scheduled to start in the next 12 months.
The leading brands for these franchise companies are Home2 Suites by Hilton with 421 projects/421 rooms, IHG’s Holiday Inn Express with 288 projects/27,620 rooms and Marriott’s Fairfield Inn with 247 projects, 23,344 rooms.
Through year-end 2021, Marriott, Hilton and IHG-branded hotels represented 585 new hotel openings with 73,415 rooms. In 2022, LE forecasts that Marriott will open 207 projects/27,258 rooms for a growth rate of 3.1 per cent; Hilton to open 165 projects/18,764 rooms for a growth rate of 2.5 per cent; and IHG to open 115 projects/12,387 rooms for a growth rate of 2.9 per cent. In 2023, Marriot is expected to open an additional 211 projects/25,056 rooms for a growth rate of 2.7 per cent. LE predicts Hilton will open 173 projects/21,450 rooms for a 2.8-per-cent growth rate and IHG is expected to see 148 projects/15,146 rooms for a growth rate of 3.4 per cent in 2023.
