According to 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 third quarter of 2020 are Marriott International with 1,390 hotels and 184,450 rooms, followed by Hilton with 1,351 hotels and 155,626 rooms and IHG with 873 hotels and 89,375 rooms.
Combined, these three companies account for 68 percent of the projects and 66 percent of the rooms in the total pipeline. Notably, this percentage has more or less held steady quarter over quarter throughout 2020, indicating no substantial increase or decrease in the franchise pipelines since the summer.
Top Brands
Hilton’s Home2 Suites and IHG’s Holiday Inn Express continue to have the largest U.S. pipelines with—respectively—402 hotels with 42,036 rooms and 348 hotels with 33,351 rooms. Hampton by Hilton follows with 291 hotels and 30,140 rooms, then Tru by Hilton with 280 hotels and 26,991, and Marriott’s Fairfield Inn with 277 hotels 27,005 rooms.
Other notable brands in the pipeline for each of these franchise companies are Marriott’s Residence Inn with 198 hotels and 24,549 rooms, SpringHill Suites with 172 hotels and 19,594 rooms and TownePlace Suites with 195 hotels and 19,616 rooms and then IHG’s Avid with 185 hotels and 16,583 rooms.
Through the third quarter of 2020, 599 new hotels with 68,712 rooms opened across the United States. Of those openings, Marriott, Hilton, and IHG branded hotels collectively accounted for 72 percent of these openings through the end of the quarter. Of the total, 173 hotels were Marriott brands, 170 were Hilton brands and another 86 were IHG brands. Lodging Econometrics expects these top franchise companies to open another 202 hotels by the end of 2020.