SPECIAL REPORT
HOTELS
DESPITE THE PANDEMIC AND COMING OFF THE WORST YEAR IN LODGING ’ S HISTORY , MOST OF THE WORLD ’ S BIGGEST HOTEL COMPANIES STILL SHOWED PORTFOLIO GROWTH .
By JEFF WEINSTEIN , EDITOR IN CHIEF
In what is , indeed , a testament to the strength of travel and tourism HO- TELS annual ranking of the world ’ s biggest hotel companies held up just fine based on data at the end of 2020 and future expectations bode well for the future as pipelines remain robust . As Hilton CEO Chris Nassetta so aptly stated at an NYU virtual event late last year , “ Travel is an unstoppable force .”
HOTELS annual ranking of the world ’ s biggest hotel companies has been slimmed down this year to 200 corporate companies and the usual 25 consortia . The threshold to make the listing now stands at close to 7,000 rooms .
Due to a lack of major mergers and acquisitions in 2020 , there are no major changes in the ranking . However , we did remove Oyo from the listing as it was very difficult to substantiate their data and we do believe the Oyo business model is a bit of an outlier , making it hard to compare to other hotel companies . Nonetheless , it is worthy of note that its website boasts 1 million rooms and more than 43,000-member hotels .
Noteworthy movers in the ranking include Sonesta International Hotels Corp ., which jumped to 51st in the ranking from 96th after making multiple deals with its parent , Service Properties Trust . Their ranking will likely significantly jump up again next year as this year ’ s data does not even include its 2021 final acquisition of Red Lion .
While there were other notable high flyers , what did not change is the top of the ranking , led by Marriott International . Hilton broke the 1 million room count and what also remains noticeable is the growing number of Chinese hotel companies climbing the ranking .
There are stories aplenty to be found inside HOTELS annual list . On the pages ahead , find the movers that continue to grow their portfolios and see if you can identify the strugglers that might become acquisition targets .
74 hotelsmag . com July / August 2021