In the recently released quarterly United States Construction Pipeline Trend Report from Lodging Econometrics (LE), the franchise companies with the largest construction pipelines at the end of the third quarter of 2020 are Marriott International with 1,390 projects/184,450 rooms, followed by Hilton Worldwide with 1,351 projects/155,626 rooms, and InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) with 873 projects/89,375 rooms. Combined these three companies account for 68% of the projects and 66% of the rooms in the total pipeline; roughly the same percentage it’s been quarter-over-quarter throughout 2020.
Hilton’s Home2 Suites and IHG’s Holiday Inn Express continue to have the largest U.S. pipelines with 402 projects/42,036 rooms and 348 projects/33,351 rooms, respectively. Hampton by Hilton follows with 291 projects/30,140 rooms, then Tru by Hilton with 280 projects/26,991, and Marriott’s Fairfield Inn with 277 projects/27,005 rooms.
Other notable brands in the pipeline for each of these franchise companies are Marriott’s Residence Inn with 198 projects/24,549 rooms, SpringHill Suites with 172 projects/19,594 rooms, and TownePlace Suites with 195 projects/19,616 rooms, and then IHG’s Avid Hotel with 185 projects/16,583 rooms.
Through the third quarter of 2020, 599 new hotels with 68,712 rooms opened across the United States. Of those openings, Marriott, Hilton, and IHG branded hotels collectively accounted for 72% of these openings through Q3 ’20. 173 of the hotels were Marriott brands, 170 were Hilton brands, and another 86 were IHG brands. LE is expecting these top franchise companies to open another 202 hotels by the end of 2020.
For 2021, these leading franchise companies are forecast to open 655 new hotels adding 77,101 rooms to the census of open and operating hotels in the U.S.
*COVID-19 (coronavirus) has had an unprecedented impact on the country and the hospitality industry. LE’s market intelligence department has and will continue to gather global hotel intelligence on the supply side of the lodging industry and make that information available to our subscribers. It is still early to predict the full impact the pandemic will have on the lodging industry. We will have more information to report in the coming months.
