PORTSMOUTH, N.H. — Lodging Econometrics (LE) recently released its Q4 2020 United States Construction Pipeline Trend Report, which found that three franchise companies combined account for 67 percent of projects and 65 percent of rooms in the total U.S. hotel construction pipeline. These three franchise companies with the largest pipelines at year-end 2020 are Marriott International with 1,397 projects/184,775 rooms, Hilton Worldwide with 1,290 projects/150,294 rooms, and InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) with 826 projects/84,397 rooms.
At the end of Q4 2020, more than 50 percent of Hilton’s pipeline projects (659 projects/71,962 rooms) were in the early planning project stage—a record-high in this stage for the company. Most of Marriott’s (44 percent) and IHG’s (65 percent) projects are currently in the scheduled-to-start-in-the-next-12-months stage.
The brands with the largest U.S. pipelines currently are Hilton’s Home2 Suites with 385 projects/40,265 rooms and IHG’s Holiday Inn Express with 326 projects/31,258 rooms. Hampton by Hilton follows with 281 projects/29,434 rooms, then Tru by Hilton with 261 projects/25,027, and Marriott’s Fairfield Inn with 277 projects/26,922 rooms.
Other notable brands in the pipeline include Marriott’s TownePlace Suites with 203 projects/20,241 rooms and Residence Inn with 192 projects/23,815 rooms, IHG’s avid Hotel with 175 projects/15,675 rooms, and then Marriott’s SpringHill Suites with 164 projects/18,585 rooms.
Through year-end 2020, Marriott, Hilton, and IHG branded hotels represented 594 new hotel openings totaling 67,368 rooms; 244 of the hotels were Hilton brands, 230 were Marriott brands, and another 120 were IHG brands. LE is expecting these top franchise companies to open another 617 hotels by the end of 2021. For 2022, these same companies are forecast to open 671 new hotels.
