According to the United States Construction Pipeline Trend Report from Lodging Econometrics (LE), the franchise companies with the largest construction pipelines at the end of the first quarter of 2020 are Marriott International with 1,556 projects/204,244 rooms, followed by Hilton Worldwide with 1,413 projects/161,743 rooms, and InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) with 954 projects/97,547 rooms.

Combined, the brands of these three franchise companies comprise 69% of the projects in the total U.S. pipeline.

The leading brands by project count for these three companies continue to be Hilton’s Home2 Suites by Hilton with 421 projects/43,816 rooms, IHG’s Holiday Inn Express with 380 projects/36,329 rooms, and Marriott’s Fairfield Inn with 315 projects/30,336 rooms. These three brands dominate the total pipeline and combined represent 20% of the projects.

Other notable brands in the pipeline for each of these franchise companies are: Hampton by Hilton with 310 projects/32,146 rooms and Hilton’s Tru by Hilton with 302 projects/29,132 rooms; Marriott’s TownePlace Suites with 217 projects/21,834 rooms and Residence Inn with 214 projects/26,262 rooms; IHG’s Avid Hotel with 195 projects/17,595 rooms and Staybridge Suites with 149 projects/15,564 rooms.

In the first quarter of 2020, 144 new hotels having 16,305 rooms opened across the United States. Of those openings, Marriott opened 42 hotels/5,595 rooms, Hilton opened 37 hotels/3,840 rooms, and IHG opened 23 hotels/2,204 rooms. Collectively, these three franchise companies opened 71% of all the new hotels and rooms in the first quarter.

LE recorded conversion pipeline totals of 616 projects/69,258 rooms in the first quarter of 2020. Of these conversion totals, Marriott claimed 81 projects/14,242 rooms, Hilton with 67 projects/10,646 rooms, and IHG recording 53 projects/5,553 rooms. These three franchise companies account for 44% of all the rooms in the conversion pipeline across the United States.

*COVID-19 (coronavirus) did not have a full impact on first quarter 2020 U.S. results reported by LE. Only the last 30 days of the quarter were affected. LE’s market intelligence department has and will continue to gather the necessary global intelligence on the supply side of the lodging industry and make that information available to our subscribers. It is still early to predict the full impact of the outbreak on the lodging industry. We will have more information to report in the coming months.