Analysts at Lodging Econometrics (LE) report that at year-end 2016, Marriott had the largest pipeline in the country of any franchise company with 1,301 projects/167,641 rooms. Since its acquisition of Starwood Hotels & Resorts, Marriott has added 10 full-service brands boosting its U.S. portfolio to 25 brands and increasing its total pipeline room count by 35 percent. Their largest brand in the pipeline is Fairfield Inn which has 297 projects/28,284 rooms.
Of the total pipeline, Marriott has the most projects of any franchise company under construction with 471 projects/65,924 rooms, representing over 30 percent of all projects under construction in the U.S. Additionally, they have the most projects scheduled to start construction in the next 12 months with 705 projects/85,902 rooms. Marriott also has 125 projects/167,641 rooms in early planning.
In the 4th quarter, Marriott had 86 projects start construction and announced 197 new projects into the pipeline. Both are the highest of any other franchise company. For new hotel openings, both Marriott and Hilton opened 79 new hotels each, also at a high.
