Luxury Travel Carries Marriott’s 2025 Results as Loyalty Revenue Accelerates
Luxury and resort hotels outperformed in 2025, while loyalty and credit card fees emerged as a key revenue driver heading into 2026.
Photo: Courtesy of Lake Como Edition
Marriott’s strongest hotels in 2025 weren’t defined by room counts or brand tiers—they were defined by where travelers were willing to fly for leisure.
Resorts, long-haul destinations, and luxury properties across Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, and parts of Europe carried the year, as higher-spending travelers continued to prioritize experiences over efficiency. (In contrast, U.S. business travel remained uneven, and the company’s select-service hotels felt the drag.)
That split runs through Marriott International’s fourth-quarter and full-year earnings. For 2025, the company’s luxury hotels delivered more than six percent RevPAR growth, materially outperforming the broader system and extending a pattern that has held steady since demand normalized. Leisure-driven properties, particularly resorts, benefited more from rate strength than occupancy gains.
“Our portfolio is well-positioned to benefit from continued expected strength at the upper end as higher-end consumers remain resilient and continue to prioritize spending on experience and travel over goods,” said Anthony G. Capuano, Marriott’s president and CEO, during the company’s earnings call on Tuesday.
International markets accounted for most of that momentum. In the fourth quarter, Asia-Pacific RevPAR rose nearly nine percent, with strong performances in India, Japan, and Australia. Europe, the Middle East, and Africa followed with seven percent growth, led by a 17 percent increase in the UAE. Greater China returned to modest growth late in the year, supported by leisure travel and the recovery of inbound travel, even as broader macroeconomic conditions remained soft.
North America told a quieter story. U.S. and Canada RevPAR finished the fourth quarter essentially flat, as steady leisure demand was offset by softness in business travel. The late-year government shutdown weighed on transient corporate demand in several urban markets, reinforcing the gap between leisure-led and business-driven performance.
Beyond room revenue, Marriott’s earnings also highlighted the growing importance of loyalty-driven fees. Marriott Bonvoy added approximately 43 million members in 2025, bringing total membership to roughly 271 million worldwide. Loyalty penetration deepened across regions, with members accounting for 75 percent of room nights in the U.S. and Canada and 68 percent globally.
That scale is increasingly translating into fee growth. Co-branded credit card fees rose more than eight percent in 2025, with particularly strong gains outside the U.S. Looking ahead, Marriott expects those fees to increase by roughly 35 percent in 2026, driven by higher cardholder spending and higher royalty rates tied to its card partnerships.
For 2026, Marriott is guiding to global RevPAR growth of 1.5 to 2.5 percent and net rooms growth of 4.5 to 5 percent. The company also expects the FIFA World Cup to contribute 30 to 35 basis points to global RevPAR growth, particularly in host cities across North America.
Taken together, the results point more to durability than to acceleration: luxury demand holding firm, international markets driving growth, and a loyalty platform quietly compounding as one of Marriott’s most reliable revenue engines.
