NEW YORK: Several of the world’s largest hotel chains are looking toward China to be their major growth engine in 2023, as Chinese travellers return both domestically and abroad after three years of Covid-related lockdowns.
Four of the five largest hotel groups in the world by number of rooms – Marriott, Hilton, Wyndham, and Intercontinental – posted strong end-of-year earnings for 2022, with confident growth forecasts for 2023. Marriott forecasts its annual growth in RevPAR – a key industry metric measuring revenue per available room – to be between 6% and 11% in 2023, and RevPAR in the first quarter of this year alone to grow 30% to 32% over the year before.
But as the rebound in travel demand levels off in the US in 2023, the rest of the world, in particular China, will be expected to drive continued growth.The figure jumps to a 12% to 18% growth forecast when excluding the US market, with a 47% to 49% year-over-year growth projection for the first quarter of 2023 alone.
“We believe there’s still further upside in 2023, especially now that China’s borders have reopened,” said Marriott CEO Anthony Capuano on the company’s earnings call this month, noting that all regions except China have more than recovered to pre-pandemic levels. “We’re already seeing and hearing from our teams in South Korea, where we have over 10,000 rooms, that they’re seeing more Chinese arrivals,” said Wyndham CEO Geoffrey Ballotti.And soon US destinations such as San Francisco or Hawaii could once again be welcoming throngs of Chinese tourists.