Marriott opened their first hotel in 1957 and with the acquisition of the Starwood group became the largest hotel company in the world with over 1 Million rooms. You’ll find more than 6,000 hotels in over 110 countries, giving them a huge, global footprint. And while the flagship brand Marriott might be the best know, there are now a total of 30 brands in the company – find out all the facts & figures below!
Regions: With the Starwood Acquisition, Marriott became a much more globally diverse group. With 78% of properties in the Americas, it’s now similar to IHG or Wyndham. You’ll find 569 hotels in Asia (9.4%) and 757 in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (12.5%), giving you more choices abroad. Despite that mix, Marriott is in my experience the “most American” hotel group, with tight brand standards set in Europe and a focus on American travelers that often results in above-market prices for their hotels in Europe and Asia!
Brands: While all the big hotel companies have lots of brands, Marriott has them all beat by a long shot – there are now 30 different brands. To bring some order to that long list, Marriott has structured them into Luxury, Premium and Select based on the price category and by Classic and Distinctive based on style. There is also a “Long Stay” segment. The conservative JW Marriott (Average Daily Rate ADR $235) brand is considered “Classic Luxury” while the hip & trendy W brand (ADR $294) is “Distinctive Luxury”. The mainstay Marriott (ADR $172) and Sheraton brands fall into the “Classic Premium” category, while ex-Starwood’s Le Meridien and Westin (ADR $199) brands are considered “Distinctive Premium”. The limited service Courtyard (ADR $139), its largest with 1,098 properties, or even cheaper Fairfield Inn (840 hotels) are labeled as “Classic Select”, while aloft ( a budget W with 116 properties) is considered “Distinctive Select”. In the long-stay segment, you have a choice between the boring Classic Residence Inn (734 hotels) and the distinctive Element brand (23 hotels). While I do find this segmentation helpful in understanding the brands – and finding one you like, I do think there are a lot of brands – a full half of them (15) have less than 100 hotels each for a total of 685 properties or less than 70% of the top Courtyard brand. There is also considerable overlap between brands, with some like the undifferentiated Four Points probably best left to die slowly…
Price: With a total of 7 luxury brands and 371 properties (6.1%), Marriott now has the highest number & percentage of luxury properties worldwide! That nudges out former leader IHG (248 luxury hotels) and is more than 6 times the number of Hilton Worldwide (51)!
Marriott has much fewer properties in the upscale segment with only 1,812 hotels compared to Hilton’s 2,470. It’s largest price segment are midscale hotels that represent over 64% of all properties with 3,897!, yet still behind IHG with their leading Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express brands or Choice Hotels with their Comfort & Quality Inns!
For points enthusiasts, this is a great mix of midscale and upscale hotels for regular travel and plenty of luxury hotels for aspirational dream trips!
Bottomline: With the acquisition of Starwood, Marriott has a much more balanced portfolio of hotels. With a higher share of properties in Asia and Europe, it is more interesting to global travelers and with more stylish brands like W or Le Meridien, travel is less boring. The mix of properties from reliable midscale hotels like Fairfield to the various luxury brands, combined with the sheer number of hotels offers something for everybody.
I never spend a lot of time at Marriott hotels because I found them to be too boring and at Starwood, because there were too few if very nice hotels. The combination makes them much more interesting to me and I believe many other travelers as well!
You can find all the data, based on the Financial Statement 2016, in the table below:
