Marriott Lifts 2026 RevPAR Growth Outlook To 4.5% To 5% As Third-Quarter Profit Rises 9%
The hotel company expects to return at least $4,800 million to shareholders in 2026 and says its development pipeline hit a record.
Marriott International, the hotel franchisor and operator, raised its full-year 2026 outlook for revenue per available room (RevPAR) to growth of 4.5% to 5%, after worldwide RevPAR rose 6.5% in the third quarter, the company said Monday in an 8-K filing.
Profit and fees both climb
Reported net income rose 9% to $794 million, or $3.04 per diluted share, against $2.67 a year earlier. Adjusted earnings per share reached $3.02, compared with $2.47 a year earlier, and adjusted EBITDA, a measure of operating profit, rose 12% to $1,512 million.
Franchise and base management fees climbed 13% to $1,341 million, driven mainly by higher co-branded credit card fees, higher RevPAR and rooms growth. Incentive management fees rose 22% to $181 million, with every region posting growth.
RevPAR rose 7.4% in the U.S. & Canada and 4.4% in international markets. CEO Anthony Capuano said the Middle East conflict continued to weigh on results there, though trends "improved meaningfully from the second quarter."
A fee-based hotel machine
Marriott franchises, operates and licenses hotels, residences and timeshare properties under brands spanning luxury to midscale, and earns fees from owners rather than owning most buildings. It added roughly 20,100 net rooms in the quarter, and net rooms grew 4.6% from a year earlier.
The development pipeline reached a record of 4,209 properties and more than 634,000 rooms. Capuano said conversions of existing hotels made up over a third of signings and over 40 percent of openings in the first nine months. Bonvoy loyalty membership reached approximately 309 million at quarter-end.
Buybacks and the fourth-quarter outlook
Marriott repurchased 3.5 million shares for $1.3 billion in the quarter. Through October 28 it has returned approximately $4.0 billion to shareholders, and it expects to return at least $4,800 million for the year.
For the fourth quarter it forecasts adjusted EPS of $3.14 to $3.21; the full-year range is $12.07 to $12.14. Its outlook assumes the sale of a U.S. & Canada hotel in the fourth quarter. Total debt stood at $16.8 billion against $16.2 billion at year-end 2025.
Marriott holds its earnings call at 8:00 a.m. Eastern on Monday.
