In the recently released quarterly "United States Construction Pipeline Trend Report" from Lodging Econometrics, the franchise companies with the largest construction pipelines at the end of the second quarter of 2020 are Marriott International with 1,487 hotels and 195,952 rooms, followed by Hilton with 1,395 hotels and 160,078 rooms and InterContinental Hotels Group with 920 hotels and 94,499 rooms.
Combined, these three companies account for 68 percent of the projects in the total pipeline, roughly the same percentage as the end of the first quarter.
Hilton’s Home2 Suites and IHG’s Holiday Inn Express continue to be the most prominent brands in the U.S. pipeline with 415 hotels/43,336 rooms and 371/35,539 rooms, respectively. Hampton by Hilton follows with 304 hotels and 31,365 rooms and then Marriott’s Fairfield Inn with 302 hotels and 29,251 rooms. These four brands combined represent 25 percent of the projects in the total pipeline.
Other notable brands in the pipeline for each of these franchise companies are Tru by Hilton with 298 hotels and 28,863 rooms, Marriott’s Residence Inn with 208 hotels and 25,520 rooms, SpringHill Suites with 184 hotels and 20,842 rooms, and TownePlace Suites with 207 hotels and 20,802 rooms and then IHG’s Avid Hotel with 189 hotels and 17,090 rooms.
In the second quarter of 2020, LE recorded 580 conversion hotels and 66,852 rooms. Of these conversion totals, Best Western dominates with 150 conversion hotels and 13,482 rooms, alone claiming 25 percent of the conversion pipeline by projects. Following Best Western is Marriott with 79 hotels and 13,721 rooms. Hilton has 69 hotels and 11,279 rooms and IHG recorded 50 hotels and 5,382 rooms. Best Western and these three franchise companies combined account for 66 percent of all the rooms in the conversion pipeline across the United States.
In the first half of 2020, 313 new hotels with 36,992 rooms opened across the United States. Of those openings, Marriott, Hilton and IHG collectively opened 69 percent of the hotels. Marriott opened 90 hotels 11,036 rooms, Hilton opened 82 hotels with 8,728 rooms and IHG opened 44 hotels with 4,190 rooms.