Marriott opening 1700 new hotels by 2021
 

Marriott is having an analyst conference today. Arne was on Bloomberg this morning (I suspect CNBC too) talking about growth plans. He indicated they were looking to grow share and that their share in properties under development is greater than their existing market share. This suggests developers are pretty confident about Marriott.

Why shouldn't they? MR is the biggest global hotel chain with the biggest loyalty program (which converts to people that have some incentive to actually frequent your property). Since MR Bonvoy isn't as rewarding as it could be from a traveller perspective, the provision of elite benefits will not significantly impact your PnL (from an investor's perspective). So I think MR - from a hotel developer and manager perspective - has a lot of positves.

Agree for personal travel. For work, I end up staying a lot of Courtyards (and some Hilton Garden Inn's) due to cost. So some of each would be helpful.

Marriott is having big trouble managing their already large and wide ranging portfolio, it's clear the solution is to increase their size by 25% before fixing the current problems.

Marriott has announced similar goals in the past. This is nothing more than an attempt to spin the narrative coming out of industry analysts and even shareholders. Remember beyond all the Bonvoy and Starwood integration problems there have been some calls by activist shareholders for Marriott to change.

I'd rather focus on quality, not quantity.

Look at where they've put the resources in the past few years: limited service properties. If one in ten is a destination resort or high-service business/urban property I'll be surprised.

They're just trying to justify having those 30 brands!

Please open more hotels in Europe and in Australia.

The footprint is key. I am struggling with CS and IT and switching to Hyatt when I can. 1700 new additions in 2 years is more than Hyatt's total footprint. I find myself booking Marriott even if I don't want to simply because they offer so many choices.

Considering how bad their IT issues are, yet so many stick with them, choice is what they should focus on for growth alongside IT

By my count, the overwhelming majority will be limited service. There are 400+ Fairfields in development alone.

The money is in limited service! Beyond Marriott, banks are reluctant to finance high end properties. For example, there is a great development planned for a W in the Algarve that was supposed to have opened last fall but hasn't broken ground ... presumably because they can't get financing to build.

Plus, labor costs for full-service properties are high.

And, the problem with aspirational properties is that while they are aspirational, demand can be very cyclical. In 2009, there weren't very many people going to the Maldives but the Courtyard in Milwaukee was still OK.

Not every city in the world can support a Ritz Carlton, JW Marriott or Luxury Collection property.

My travel patterns take me from the big cities to the smaller ones where you are lucky to get any branded properties at all.

Avoiding Marriott these days has allowed me experience great service from a new Holiday Inn (would put a five-star property to shame) and couple of Preferred Rewards properties as well as a two small boutique hotels. This allows be to avoid the frustration with the useless customer service agents and the terrible website and app.