Marriott Posts Quarterly Gains, Sees Business Travel Picking Up This Fall

The hotel chain, whose portfolio encompasses roughly 7,800 properties world-wide, sees demand for business and group stays rising in the fall as it anticipates more workers returning to offices on a hybrid basis, Mr. Capuano said. “Many of our associates are starting to get back on the road, and our largest corporate clients tell us they are beginning to do the same,” he said.

The company, based in Bethesda, Md., has also seen more blending of leisure trips with business travel, a trend it expects to continue, Mr. Capuano said.

The company turned a profit of $422 million, compared with a loss of $234 million in the prior-year period. Revenue more than doubled to $3.15 billion but missed Wall Street estimates.

World-wide occupancy was 50.8% for the quarter, up 32.8 percentage points from a year ago and down 24.1 percentage points from the same quarter in 2019, the company said. Comparable systemwide revenue per available room, a closely watched industry metric known as RevPAR, rose 262.6% world-wide from a year earlier and fell 43.8% from the 2019 level.

In April, leisure, business and group room nights in mainland China were all ahead of 2019 levels for the first time since the pandemic began, Mr. Capuano said. Revenue per available room in mainland China for the second quarter was on par with the comparable period in 2019, he said.

At the same time, the Delta variant is changing calculations of governments around the world, raising doubts about how quickly they can leave the coronavirus pandemic behind. Although Covid-19 vaccines are holding up well against the Delta variant, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week urged all people in counties with high or substantial transmission of the virus to wear masks in indoor public settings. Some school districts and companies have also moved to implement their own mask mandates.

Hotel company Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. last week reported quarterly earnings of $130 million, up from a loss of $430 million in the year-earlier period. Revenue more than doubled to $1.33 billion but was below analysts’ estimates.

Write to Dave Sebastian at [email protected]