Hilton Worldwide has reported a net loss of
US$81 million for Q3, a significant improvement from US$432 million in Q2.
The group has seen a pick-up in business travel in the third quarter, as well as some group business bookings "in the year, for the year, and not in insignificant amounts," said the company's president and CEO Christopher Nassetta on a Wednesday morning earnings call.
The group saw steady increases in demand over the summer, led by leisure. Those trends slowed after Labor Day (6 September), however, that was "offset by the slight uptick of corporate transient," Nassetta said. "It's not the traditional [transient] customers … it's smaller business, sales forces, frontline folks responding to the crisis."
Occupancy at the group has increased month over month, the company said, with the most notable
recoveries in Asia Pacific, the US and Europe, with comparable hotel occupancy
levels up approximately 32 percentage points, 32 percentage points and 31
percentage points, respectively, from April to September.
The best occupancy during
the period was reported in Hilton’s Homewood Suites and Home2 Suites brands, at
62.2 per cent and 63.4 per cent. In Europe, occupancy stood at 31.6 per cent, down 51.5 percentage points, and ADR at £103.45
for Q3.
The group said that system-wide
comparable RevPAR for the three months decreased by 59.9 per cent year on year
to US$44.95.
Nassetta said, "Our
third quarter results show meaningful improvement over the second quarter. The
vast majority of our properties around the world are now open and have
gradually begun to recover from the limitations that the Covid-19 pandemic has
imposed on the travel industry, with occupancy increasing more than 20
percentage points from the second quarter.
"While a full recovery will take
time, we are well positioned to capture rising demand and execute on growth
opportunities."
The group has opened 133 new hotels,
including the Conrad Punta de Mita in Mexico, the Hilton Beijing
Tongzhou in China and the Motto by Hilton Washington DC City Center. It also approved 17,400 new
rooms for development during the third quarter, bringing Hilton's development
pipeline to 408,000 rooms as of 30 September, 8 per cent higher than at the
same date in 2019.
The group
says that as of 2 November, 97 per cent of Hilton's hotels were open.
Additional reporting by Donna M Airoldi