Marriott International gains after hotel development update
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Marriott International (MAR
+3.4%) trades higher after the hotel operator updates in its 2021 development progress.
The company says its worldwide system consisted of nearly 8K properties and roughly 1.48M rooms spread across 139 countries and territories. Marriott says it had the largest global development pipeline at the end of the year with roughly 485K rooms in the pipeline. The company signed 599 agreements during 2021 representing approximately 92Krooms of which slightly more than half are located outside of U.S. and Canada. For the year, Marriott added more than 86K rooms on a gross basis, which marked 3.9% system growth despite the pandemic headwinds and inclusive of deletions of 2.1%.

As part of the update, Marriott notes that interest in brand conversions remains high, led by the company's portfolio of collection brands, including Autograph Collection Hotels, The Luxury Collection, and in particular the Tribute Portfolio, which has grown its footprint of open and pipeline hotels by nearly four times in the past five years.
Shares of Marriott are now more than 12% from their low mark in early December when concerns about the omicron COVID variant clipped travel and leisure stocks.