Marriott Opens All Of Its Hotels In China, Sees Steady US Recovery

By Dave Simpson
Marriott Opens All Of Its Hotels In China, Sees Steady US Recovery

Marriott International has reopened all of its hotels in China and is seeing a steady recovery in the United States, its CEO Arne Sorenson said on Monday June 1.

Shares of the hotel operator, which owns the Ritz-Carlton and St. Regis luxury brands, rose as much as 8.1% to $95.64 in afternoon trading after Sorenson said that the occupancy rate in China was 40% currently, up from 7% to 8% in February, when COVID-19 started spreading.

"It's not just leisure travel growing, but it is business travel. Chinese are flying again," Sorenson said at a Goldman Sachs conference.

US Hotels

In the United States, Marriott's hotels that remained open crossed the 20% occupancy threshold and continue to see an improvement, Sorenson said.

"The [US] hotels that are performing strongest are those that are most dependent on drive to business," he said.

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The company had an occupancy rate of approximately 12% in North America in April, with 16% of its hotels closed temporarily.

However, Sorenson warned that it could take Marriott a few years to get back to levels of occupancy seen in 2019, when its global occupancy rate was 71%.

News by Reuters, edited by Hospitality Ireland. Click subscribe to sign up for the Hospitality Ireland print edition.