Hotel giant Marriott International saw global RevPAR (revenue per available room) from business travel fall year-on-year in the final quarter of 2025, due to the impact of the US government’s 43-day shutdown.
The US-based company reported a 3 per cent year-on-year decline in business travel RevPAR in the US and Canada during Q4 of last year.
Marriott’s government RevPAR dropped by more than 30 per cent during the shutdown but this has now “moderated to down around 15 per cent,” according to Marriott’s CEO Anthony Capuano, during the company’s earnings call on Tuesday (10 February).
Marriott added that global business travel RevPAR declined year-on-year in Q4, while group and leisure grew 2 per cent and 4 per cent respectively.
In response to a question about business travel trends, Marriott’s CFO Leeny Oberg said she expected business travel demand would eventually return to 2019 levels, but she added: “I think leisure is going to continue to be stronger”.
Looking ahead, Marriott is projecting full-year RevPAR growth in the “low single digits” year-on-year in 2026 across group, leisure and business travel.
Marriott’s financial performance
Marriott's global Q4 RevPAR increased by 1.9 per cent year-on-year to $127.64, with a 6.1 per cent rise in international markets, including a 3.4 per cent rise in Europe, offsetting a 0.1 per cent decline in North America during the quarter.
Global average daily rate (ADR) increased by 2.5 per cent year-on-year to $189.27 in Q4 but occupancy decreased 0.4 percentage points to 67.4 per cent. In Europe, Marriott’s properties saw ADR increase by 1.2 per cent year-on-year to $216.81 in Q4, while occupancy rose by 1.5 points to 71.2 per cent in the quarter.
For full-year 2025, Marriott achieved global RevPAR growth of 2 per cent year-on-year, driven by a 2.1 per cent increase in ADR while occupancy remained flat at 69.3 per cent. In Europe, RevPar went up by 3.3 per cent compared with 2024, while ADR rose 0.8 per cent and occupancy improved by 1.7 points to 71.3 per cent.
Looking ahead, Marriott forecasts that RevPAR will increase by between 1 and 2 per cent year-on-year in the first quarter and rise by between 1.5 and 2.5 per cent for 2026.
Despite the slowdown in North America, Marriott grew Q4 revenue by 4 per cent year-on-year to nearly $6.7 billion, while full-year revenue rose by 4.3 per cent to more than $26 billion in 2025.
Net profit in Q4 for Marriott was $445 million, which was down from $455 million during the same quarter of 2024. But annual net profit rose from $2.37 billion in 2024 to $2.6 million last year.
AI update
During his prepared remarks, Capuano said the company sees AI as “an opportunity to potentially redefine the customer acquisition paradigm that has governed our industry for the past several decades”.
Capuano said Marriott plans to deploy natural-language search on its website and through its Bonvoy mobile app during the first half of 2026.
“We're optimistic about the potential for AI to bring more consumers into the Marriott Bonvoy ecosystem and help strengthen our direct booking channels in a very efficient manner,” said Capuano.
The hotelier is also working with numerous tech companies within the AI space, including Google and OpenAI.
The Marriott-Google collaboration centres around designing a property search experience that will help facilitate bookings through Google’s AI mode.
“As part of that experience, users will get to describe exactly what they're looking for in plain language, and then they'll get to compare different hotels and browse information — room photos, amenities, reviews, prices and the like,” explained Capuano.
“Then they'll be able to follow up and refine those options, and then the booking will be processed through AI mode.”
Marriott is also participating in OpenAI’s advertising pilot, which would organically integrate ads into free versions of ChatGPT.