Hotel giant Marriott International has benefited from “continued momentum” in travel demand during the second quarter of 2023, including “strong growth” in business travel sales.

The US-based company’s CEO Anthony Capuano said the year-on-year increase in revenue from corporate travel in North America had been “driven by solid average daily rate growth” during Q2.

Marriott particularly benefited from a strong international performance with Q2 revpar (revenue per available room) up by 39.1 per cent year-on-year outside North America, compared with just a 6 per cent increase in the US and Canada during the quarter. Overall global revpar was up by 13.5 per cent.

Capuano described Marriott’s Q2 performance as “another quarter of outstanding results” and added that China had “rebounded quickly” following the country’s lifting of Covid-19 restrictions in January, which had helped its international business.

Average daily rate (ADR) in Europe was $219.59 across all properties on Marriott’s system during Q2, which was a 12.8 per cent increase on the same quarter of 2022. This was highest regional ADR globally for the company. By comparison, properties in the US and Canada saw a more modest 4.1 per cent year-on-year rise in ADR to $187.44.

Occupancy in Marriott’s European properties reached 73.8 per cent in Q2, up by 6.9 percentage points year-on-year, which was just ahead of North America where occupancy was at 73.6 per cent during the quarter.

“Our growth strategies are proving successful,” added Capuano. “During the quarter, we added approximately 33,100 rooms to our system, including 17,300 City Express rooms in the Caribbean and Latin America region, and our industry-leading pipeline grew to nearly 547,000 rooms, with more than 240,000 global rooms under construction.”

Marriott increased revenue by 14 per cent to $6.1 billion compared with Q2 of 2022, while net profit went up by 7 per cent year-to-year to $726 million.

The company said that it was raising its financial outlook for the year following the announcement of the Q2 results.

“While conditions could change rapidly, booking trends remain solid. We are raising our full year rooms growth and earnings guidance and now expect to return $4.1 billion to $4.5 billion to shareholders in 2023,” said Capuano.

“Our growth strategies are proving successful. During the quarter, we added approximately 33,100 rooms to our system, including 17,300 City Express rooms in the Caribbean and Latin America region, and our industry-leading pipeline grew to nearly 547,000 rooms, with more than 240,000 global rooms under construction.”

Marriott is now predicting a profit of between $8.36 and $8.65 per share during 2023, up from its previous forecast of between $7.97 and $8.43 per share.