Travel in Marriott

A research report found that Expedia Group has lost global hotel market share since the onset of the pandemic, and all of it has come from plunging business at non-core brands, such as Hotwire, eBookers, Orbitz and Travelocity.

Good morning from Skift. It’s Wednesday, February 15. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.

“An Outstanding year,” “thrilled to report,” “record-breaking…” every U.S. hotel group CEO has been jubilant in their earnings calls these past days.

Marriott International ended 2022 with a robust performance thanks to the post-pandemic resurgence in travel, the company said on Tuesday. It enjoyed record fourth-quarter average room rates, profit at its managed hotels, hotel development plans, and sign-ups for its co-branded credit cards.

Marriott International CEO Anthony Capuano on Tuesday toured the , the first sailing vessel in The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection. Capuano said in an interview that yacht-style cruises on the 623-foot — which hosts fewer than 300 people at a time — represent an important pillar of growth for the world’s largest hotel operator by pulling the levers of loyalty and luxury.

With hotels seeing a big bounce in bookings, so too can they expect to see more so-called rogue rates creeping back. These are rates that they’ve not authorized, and are a common complaint. Now one of the major bedbank players has developed a platform to help hotels fix any rogue rates they spot.

Environmental sustainability is becoming more important to companies, governments, and travelers alike. No news there. But how are hotel companies responding to the changing demands and increased scrutiny around environmental reporting and emission reduction requirements?

Dubai welcomed 1.47 million overnight visitors in January as Russia went on to be the second largest tourism source market for the emirate. Registering a 63 percent increase over 2022, for the emirate, 115,000 Russians visited Dubai for tourism. The highest number of international guests were from India at 186,000, while the third-biggest source market was Saudi Arabia with 98,000 visitors. Skift had earlier mentioned in an article how Dubai has proved to be a safe haven for sanction-hit Russians wanting to flee the country. During the year following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, air traffic between Moscow and Dubai grew at a whopping 228 percent compared to pre-pandemic, according to travel analytics firm ForwardKeys. While Dubai’s 1.47 million overnight visitors in January is lower compared to 2019’s 1.6 million, it is 50 percent above January 2022’s 980,000 visitors.

Booking.com, which has marketing relationships with the International Cricket Council and the Union of European Football Associations, is playing ball with Major League Baseball.

India-based hotel ownership and asset management platform Samhi Hotels has refiled draft papers with the Indian stock market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to raise an initial public offering (IPO) of around $120 million.

Expedia Group executives such as CEO Peter Kern and Chairman Barry Diller have long railed against Google’s inordinate dominance in travel advertising, but now Kern is hoping that the emergence of generative AI companies and other emerging technologies may lead to diminished dependence.

Bulgari Hotels & Resorts opened its eighth hotel on April 4, the Bulgari Hotel Tokyo.

U.S. hotel operators are expected to post a rise in first-quarter profit even as they pour in money to lure travelers to make bookings directly through their websites, instead of turning to travel agencies.

Driven by the resurgence in demand for travel, Saudi Arabia-based travel services provider Seera Group reported its first yearly post-pandemic operating profit of $800,000 in 2022, compared to a loss of $76 million in 2021. This return to profit for the group for the year was mostly bolstered by Seera’s financial results for the third quarter in which the group had reported a post-pandemic operating profit of $8 million. In 2022, the group generated gross booking value of $2.5 billion, a 94 percent growth relative to the $1.3 billion recorded in 2021. Almosafer, Seera’s travel platform, which operates the consumer and business travel business lines, as well as the destination management company Discover Saudi and Hajj and Umrah tour operator Mawasim, achieved around 74 percent growth in gross booking value to $1.6 billion in 2022 compared to 2021. Almosafer noted that travel demand in 2022 surged across inbound, outbound and domestic tourism and at times, exceeded 2019 levels. With the full reopening of travel in 2022, the company noted that Almosafer’s consumer travel business saw an unprecedented surge in bookings, which led to an aggressive demand capture ahead of a full-blown travel season in 2022. Fueled by the unwavering appetite for leisure travel following the removal of nearly all pandemic travel restrictions in many countries across the world, Almosafer’s consumer business saw 2022 booking volumes exceed pre-pandemic levels. With an average of 35 percent share of booking volume, domestic tourism continued to be an important contributor to the success of the company’s consumer business. Seera also observed that the digital adoption rate for its travel management portal reached 40 percent in 2022 as companies made bookings through Almosafer Business’ digital portal. Seera continues to expand the group’s hospitality footprint nationwide, primarily in the mid-market and upper mid-market segments. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund has also acquired a 30 percent stake in Almosafer for $412 million.

Hilton hopes to have 1,000 hotels operating in Asia Pacific by 2025 and sees opportunity at all tiers, but particularly in luxury brands and entry-level hotels.

Marriott brand Ritz-Carlton and Patina Hotels & Resorts claim they are together pioneering a new employee training program with the EHL Hospitality Business School in the Maldives.

Marriott plans to have 250 properties across India by 2025, including hotels that are open and in the pipeline. “We’re in 40 cities today, that should be 50 cities or more by 2025,” said Marriott International CEO Anthony Capuano, adding that this would help create 10,000 new jobs in the country. Capuano, who was visiting India last week, spoke about his meeting with the Indian tourism minister during which they discussed the importance of continuing to tell the story about the rich and diverse set of experiences that the country offers. “And we want to make sure we have lodging options in all of those diverse destinations,” Capuano said. Reiterating Marriott’s “relatively simple” development strategy of providing the right product in every market the travelers want to visit for any type of trips, Capuano said the hotel group would continue to stay focused on India’s “strong and growing” domestic market. However, he did mention that the hotel group is a long way off as far as opportunity for luxury in India is concerned. “I think we’re in our infancy of growing our industry portfolio in luxury. That’s probably an area where we’ll continue to focus on,” Capuano said. True to Capuano’s statements, global hotels brands have been exploring the potential of India’s luxury market with Hilton’s last week announcement of the debut of the Waldorf Astoria brand in India and Radisson announcing the launch of its Radisson Collection in the country. Capuano also went to to talk about India witnessing a strong traction for branded residential properties, which Marriott launched in the country early this year. While 2020 and 2021 were the two most challenging years in the history of the hospitality business, interestingly, these were the two strongest years in the history of Marriott’s branded residential business, said Capuano. “The launch of Homes & Villas, allowed us to keep our customers within the Bonvoy ecosystem and it’s not coincidental that we saw our volume of listings grow more than 20-fold over the two years of the pandemic,” Capuano said. And when asked to choose his favorite India-based hotel brand, Capuano couldn’t resist naming the Taj. “Taj is an iconic brand on a global basis. They have generated some of the world’s most extraordinary leaders who have taken their expertise global,” Capuano said.

Marriott International has long relied on its array of 30 brands to appeal to diverse mix of travelers. But the hotel giant increasingly would like consumers to believe its loyalty program gives them access to a surprising mix of lodging. Its marketers appear to hope that travelers will make Marriott’s mobile app their default place to book hotels.

In the next few weeks, the largest hotel companies will report their financial performance for the first quarter and provide a glimpse of future trends. Here’s a survey of expectations based on recent reports from investment bank analysts.

Saudi Arabia has the largest hotel construction activity in the Middle East and Africa region, followed by United Arab Emirates, according to hotel research firm STR. Saudi Arabia topped the regional list with 42,033 hotel rooms, followed by United Arab Emirates with 22,324 rooms, as per March 2023 pipeline data report from STR. Most of the region’s pipeline activity is focused in the Middle East, STR said. In March, around 119,505 rooms were under construction in the Middle East and Africa, which is down 6 percent compared to March 2022. STR further noted that each of the four world regions — Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa, and the Americas — showed a year-over-year decline in hotel construction activity, with Asia Pacific coming closest to its 2022 comparable. However, the picture is more positive for the Middle East and Africa. The region has 45,529 rooms in the “final planning stage,” up 20 percent year-on-year, while the rooms in the “planning stage” have gone up to 84,116, an increase of 21.2 percent year-on-year.

Expedia Group and Mastercard are teaming to power a loyalty points redemption program that enables banks and credit unions that issue Mastercards to enable their cardholders to redeem credit card loyalty points after booking Expedia-provided trips.