In the recently released Q4’20 United States Construction Pipeline Trend Report from Lodging Econometrics (LE), the franchise companies with the largest U.S. construction pipelines at year-end 2020 are Marriott International with 1,397 projects/184,775 rooms, followed by Hilton Worldwide with 1,290 projects/150,294 rooms, and InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) with 826 projects/84,397 rooms. These three companies combined account for 67% of the projects and 65% of the rooms in the total U.S. construction pipeline.
At the end of Q4’20, over 50% of Hilton’s projects in the pipeline are in the early planning project stage, a record-high in this stage for the company, with 659 projects/71,962 rooms. Most of Marriott’s and IHG’s projects are currently in the scheduled to start in the next 12 months stage, with 44% and 65% in this stage, respectively.
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 with 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.