Marriott bets on the ‘bleisure’ lifestyle

Photo: AFP
Photo: AFP

Summary

In a world changed by the pandemic, the hotel chain’s key to recovery may be mixing business with pleasure

Marriott International’s late Chief Executive Officer Arne Sorenson, who died last week, told Forbes in 2019 that he wanted his company to be “as big as possible." His boldest move came back in 2015 when he announced that Marriott would acquire Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, adding brands that appealed to travelers’ interests and values such as design, fashion, youth and productivity. Now Marriott is hoping Mr. Sorenson’s biggest deal can be its savior.

If big was Mr. Sorenson’s mission, he succeeded. Marriott’s acquisition of Starwood made it the largest hotel chain in the world. Over the course of Mr. Sorenson’s decade-plus tenure at the top, Marriott’s stock more than tripled, keeping most of his long-term shareholders happy.

Until last year, at least, when some of its portfolio’s strengths became its biggest weaknesses. Nearly half of Marriott’s hotel rooms are now in urban areas, while upscale rooms make up about a third of its portfolio. In 2019, 60% of its room nights booked were for business travel. In 2020, the coronavirus hit urban and upscale hotels the hardest in the hotel industry, according to data from hotel-analytics firm STR. Perhaps worst of all, business travel essentially evaporated overnight. At the height of the pandemic in April, Marriott temporarily had to shut more than a quarter of its hotels, while revenue per available room was down 90% year on year.

But at least some of Marriott’s die hard investors seem relatively undeterred, even while trends remain severely depressed. On Thursday, Marriott said it swung to its first full-year loss since 2009. It also said occupancy rates in the U.S. and Canada fell from the third to the fourth quarter to just 35%, less than half of the world-wide occupancy levels the company saw in 2019 overall. Meanwhile, the company declined to give a substantive 2021 outlook, except to say that the impact of Covid-19 would continue to be material to its results.

Marriott’s stock is up 44% over the past six months and is nearly back to pre-pandemic levels, signaling investors’ faith that its business will fully rebound, and quickly. There are certainly signs this could be the case: Marriott said occupancy rates in mainland China, where the virus has eased, reached 60% in July and remained above that level for the remainder of the year. However, the company also reported high volatility around renewed increases in the virus, noting occupancy in the country has fallen to 40% year-to-date for that reason. That volatility is certainly something investors should keep in mind as they bet on Marriott’s recovery: Analysts aren’t forecasting that Marriott’s revenue will recover to anywhere close to 2019 levels this year.

But beyond the virus, investors also should consider the degree to which some percentage of Marriott’s key business travel might simply never return. While Marriott has been optimistic, noting bookings for business and group travel are beginning to rebound for later this year and into next year, any hit to long-term business trends would be a big loss for Marriott given its historical reliance on the sector.

In November, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates predicted half of all business travel wouldn’t return post-pandemic, an indication of how business leaders more broadly could scale back those expenses. And a December report published by IdeaWorks predicted business air travel, which largely necessitates a hotel stay, could decline by as much as 36%, noting the virtual work patterns formed during 2020 and 2021 are likely to be habit-forming.

To compensate, Marriott has been working to turn its hotels into “bleisure" destinations, taking advantage of a growing lifestyle trend where consumers seek to blend leisure travel with work. Through its “Work Anywhere" promotion, Marriott is offering travelers the ability to book a hotel room for just a day, or to get a full day and a night’s worth of use out of a one-night booking. It is also catering to working families, providing children’s activities, semiprivate work areas and business facilities.

Based on Marriott’s latest results, the company still has a lot of work to do to convince today’s travelers that its hotel rooms make for safe and desirable office space in addition to a coveted place to rest their heads.

If hotel “bleisure" really is the lifestyle of the future, Marriott’s remaining investors are trendsetters.

This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text.

Catch all the Corporate news and Updates on Live Mint. Download The Mint News App to get Daily Market Updates & Live Business News.
more

MINT SPECIALS

Switch to the Mint app for fast and personalized news - Get App

Chat with MintGenie