Marriott expects faster recovery as bookings rise gradually

As the number of bookings gradually recover, Marriott International said that it expects the year’s cash burn to be slower than previous forecasts.

The pandemic had forced the hotel chain to report its first quarterly loss in almost nine years. But following the improvement, Marriott has revised its cash burn estimates from $145 million per month in 2020 to $85 million a month.

Though it may take them a few years to return to pre-COVID levels, the world’s largest hotel chain said it was seeing a steady increase in occupancy rates worldwide with economies slowly reopening.

“We see folks are increasingly willing to step out and travel. Leisure demand may continue to be a significant source of recovery past Labor Day and into the fall. But we would expect the corporate to be slower.”

As the pandemic necessitated lockdown was implemented in the countries across the world, hospitality and airline industries were hit hard. Marriott and rival Hilton were forced to shut down many hotels and trim thousands of jobs as cancellations began to mount.

Marriott revealed that Greater China was leading the global recovery and as early as next year, the market could attain the 2019 occupancy levels. 

Overall, the global occupancy rates of the organization strengthened to 34% over the week that ended on 1st August, up from 11% in April.

The company’s stockholders-attributable loss was $234 million in the second quarter that ended on 30th June compared to last year’s net profit of $232 million. Total revenue collapsed 72.4% to $1.46 billion.