On their first-quarter earnings calls, hotel company executives pointed to standout performance in March capping out the quarter with momentum, as well as significant macroeconomic headwinds continuing to challenge the rest of the year.
Considering these factors, public hotel companies made changes to their outlooks for the rest of the year. Here's a look at what changes were announced during first-quarter reports.
William H. Conkling, executive vice president and chief financial officer, Summit Hotel Properties
"For the full year, we have increased our RevPAR growth outlook to 0.5% to 3%, which translates to adjusted EBITDA of $170 million to $181 million, and adjusted FFO of $0.75 to $0.85 per share. Based on our RevPAR growth outlook of 0.5% to 3% and nominal expense growth of approximately 30%.
"We expect full-year 2026 hotel EBITDA margins to range from flat to down 75 basis points, which includes approximately 25 basis points of headwinds from higher property taxes."
Aaron Reyes, executive vice president and chief financial officer, Sunstone Hotel Investors
"Our revised guidance ranges reflect the outperformance we saw in the first quarter, but retain a degree of caution for the balance of the year given the uncertain backdrop.
"We now expect that rooms RevPAR for all hotels in the portfolio will increase between 5% and 7.5% to a range of $236 to $242. This reflects the full year benefit of Andaz Miami Beach, which is expected to contribute approximately 400 basis points of growth at the midpoint.
"Based on what we see today, we now expect total RevPAR to increase between 5% to 7.5%, an increase of 125 basis points at the midpoint, which captures our higher expectations for growth in ancillary spend. This would now imply a range of $390 to $400 with a similar 400-basis-point benefit from Andaz."
Joan Bottarini, chief financial officer, Hyatt Hotels Corp.
"We believe the improved performance in the United States supports increasing our full-year systemwide RevPAR growth outlook to between 2% to 4%. RevPAR in the United States could grow between 2% and 3% for the full year, reflecting the improved trends that I just reviewed. ...
"We are raising our gross fees outlook for the full year and expect fees to grow between 9% to 11% in the range of $1.305 billion to $1.335 billion.
"We are maintaining our full-year adjusted EBITDA outlook range and we expect adjusted EBITDA to grow at a strong rate of 13% to 18% in the range of $1.155 billion to $1.205 billion. This outlook reflects stronger performance in our core fee business, offset by revised expectations for the distribution segment, which we believe will decline by approximately $25 million for the full year compared to 2025, including $15 million in the second quarter from the impact of the security concerns in Mexico.
"We are maintaining our adjusted free cash flow outlook for the full year in the range of $580 million to $630 million, an increase of between 20% to 30%. This reflects the conversion of adjusted EBITDA to adjusted free cash flow of at least 50% for the full year."
Scott Oaksmith, chief financial officer, Choice Hotels International
"Adjusted EBITDA was $126 million compared to $130 million a year ago, and adjusted earnings per share were $1.07 compared to $1.34 a year ago. The year-over-year decline in adjusted EBITDA primarily reflects the timing of certain SG&A cost. The decline in adjusted EPS further reflects a temporary adjustment to our effective income tax rate in the first quarter. These items were anticipated and are expected to normalize over the balance of the year, consistent with our full-year guidance. As a result, we are maintaining our outlook across all key metrics."
Michael Glover, chief financial officer, IHG Hotels & Resorts
āWe do not see [an increase in gas prices] coming into the decision to make or not make a trip ā¦ and weāre not seeing any slowdown in group and business travel, and within group there is leisure travel, too.ā
Elie Maalouf, CEO, IHG Hotels & Resorts
Greater China performance ābottomed out in the middle of last year, but it is now positive, and we expect that performance to continue for the rest of the year. ā¦ RevPAR is a little lower, but it is net-neutral to our mix.ā
Martine Gerow, chief financial officer, Accor
āAccorās pipeline continues to grow at a healthy double-digit pace, up 10.3% year-on-year in the first quarter ā¦ and that is consistent with our goal of accelerating toward the higher end of our 3% to 5% midterm guidance.ā
Simon Ewins, managing director, U.K. hotels and restaurants, Whitbread PLC
Our five-year plan ā[will drive Ā£100 million in incremental profit before tax by 2031,ā although the firm is predicting a loss of Ā£10 million in full-year 2027.
Jennifer Mason, executive vice president and chief financial officer, Marriott International
āFor the full year, we now expect 2% to 3% global RevPAR growth. This outlook incorporates our outperformance in the first quarter as well as higher than previously anticipated RevPAR growth in the U.S. and Canada, with the strength seen across chain scales in the first quarter continuing into April.
āWe are also raising our outlook in Greater China, where we now expect full-year RevPAR growth in the low single-digit range, primarily reflecting strong first-quarter performance. We expect lower than previously anticipated RevPAR growth in the near term in APAC, driven by softer long-haul demand into certain markets that rely on golf hub connectivity. Additionally, we are slightly reducing our outlook versus prior expectations in CALA for the rest of the year, primarily due to Mexico.
āTurning to EMEA. We assume that air capacity and travel sentiment will continue to be impacted, particularly in the Middle East through the end of the year. As a reminder, the Middle East accounts for 3% of open rooms, 7% of pipeline rooms and for full year 2025, 3% of global gross speeds. We are lowering our RevPAR outlook in EMEA, reflecting continued year-over-year declines in our Middle East properties with the most severe decline expected to occur in the second quarter.ā
Sourav Ghosh, executive vice president and chief financial officer, Host Hotels & Resorts
āWe are increasing our comparable hotel RevPAR growth guidance range to 3% to 4.5% and our comparable hotel total RevPAR growth guidance range to 3.5% to 5%. The midpoint of our guidance contemplates a stable operating environment with the continuation of the trends seen in the first quarter. This includes leisure transient strength driven by special events such as the World Cup, modest improvements to short-term group booking trends and stable business transient demand.
āAt the low end of our guidance, we have assumed no improvement in short-term group booking trends and weaker special events demand. And at the high end, we have assumed improving short-term group booking trends and increased demand around special events.
āWe expect comparable hotel EBITDA margins to be up 20 basis points year-over-year at the low end of our guidance to up 50 basis points at the high end, a 30-basis-point improvement over our prior guidance. In terms of comparable hotel RevPAR growth cadence for the remainder of the year, we expect second quarter RevPAR growth to be similar to that of the first quarter, driven by the World Cup. We expect comparable hotel RevPAR for April to increase approximately 4.4% year over year. RevPAR growth in the second half of the year is expected to be in the low single digits.ā
Jon Bortz, chairman and CEO, Pebblebrook Hotel Trust
āWe have reflected the significant Q1 beat in our hotel performance assumptions. But, we've left [the second quarter] and the rest of the year unchanged from our prior outlook. As we said last quarter, we're going to take it one month at a time given the volatile and uncertain environment. But we've got a very strong first quarter done and in the books.
āSo, we've increased our current outlook for RevPAR and total RevPAR growth for the year by 75 basis points for each with our RevPAR growth outlook range now at 2.75% to 4.75% and our total RevPAR growth outlook range now at 3% to 5%.
āFor 2026, we expect to continue delivering operating efficiencies and keeping property expense growth well controlled as our outlook indicates. The [first quarter] $10 million hotel EBITDA beat has been fully passed along into our hotel EBITDA outlook at the year's midpoint.
āAs a result, we're now forecasting same-property EBITDA growth of 5.2% to 8.6%, with the midpoint at almost 7%, a healthy increase for the year and a material step up from our prior outlook. To wrap up, with a terrific first quarter behind us, we remain very excited about the 2026 setup for Pebblebrook. Now we just need the rest of the year to cooperate and provide a more stable environment.ā
Liz Perkins, executive vice president and chief financial officer, Apple Hospitality REIT
āBuilding on our strong first quarter, we are raising our full-year outlook. Consistent with the measured approach we took when we initiated guidance, we have continued to be thoughtful in our expectations for the balance of the year, recognizing the economic and geopolitical uncertainty in the broader environment while remaining confident in the underlying strength of our portfolio.
āFor the full year, we expect net income to be between $143 million and $169 million, comparable hotels RevPAR change to be between 0% and 2%, comparable hotels adjusted hotel EBITDA margin to be between 32.9% and 33.9% and adjusted EBITDAre to be between $436 million and $458 million. ā¦
āDemand for our broadly diversified rooms-focused hotels have proven resilient. With recent stronger-than-anticipated transient demand, early summer potentially benefiting from incremental leisure travel related to the FIFA World Cup and easier comparisons to periods adversely impacted by cuts in government spending, tariff announcements and the government shutdown in 2025, we acknowledge that our revised guidance could continue to prove conservative.ā
Amit Sripathi, chief financial officer, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts
āWe are reaffirming our expectation for full-year global net room growth of 4% to 4.5%. ā¦ Weāve updated our expectations to include our first-quarter U.S. outperformance as well as assumptions that the U.S. maintains this level of growth through the second quarter. Our expectations for the back half of the year in the U.S. remain unchanged at approximately flat until we gain further visibility in the peak leisure summer months. Accordingly, we're raising our global RevPAR outlook to a range of up 1% to down 1%.ā
Chris Nassetta, president and CEO, Hilton
"I think what's driving it is, you know, a number of very big-picture things that are going on. Forget, for the moment, the spike in energy prices and oil because of the war in Iran. Broadly, structurally, particularly in housing, you have inflation coming down, and as a result, broadly again ā not in this exact moment ā rates have come down. And I think you can debate how fast [and] when, second half of this year, first half of next year. But I think there's a broad understanding that, particularly if we get the Middle East stuff sort of settled down, you're going to be in a lower inflationary environment, and it will allow the Fed to continue to bring rates down, to stimulate the real economy, which is what they're trying to do. You're in, obviously, one of the most deregulatory environments in what I can remember in modern history."
Sean Dell'Orto, executive vice president, chief financial officer and chief operating officer, Park Hotels & Resorts
"While we remain mindful of the geopolitical uncertainties and the potential impact of higher oil prices on both business and leisure travel, we were very encouraged by the strength observed in Q1 with solid demand trends continuing into the second quarter. April RevPAR is expected to be flat but up 3% excluding Miami, with performance led by continued strength in Hawaii, Bonnet Creek and Key West, as well as solid spring break leisure transient demand in Santa Barbara. And while we expect performance to modestly soften in May, June looks very strong, driven by strong group demand up nearly 10% and favorable year over year comparisons across several key markets, including Hawaii, Orlando, Key West and New York."
Leslie Hale, president and CEO, RLJ Lodging Trust
"Clearly, Q1 came in better than we expected, but our view for second quarter really hasn't changed. The trends that we're seeing right now are coming in line with our expectations. We mentioned in our prepared remarks that April was up around 4%. We know that Easter was going to move up in the month, and so we're seeing strength in business and group filling in that space has been moved up. May within that quarter is going to be our softest month because of the tough comps. And then, as you know, June is going to benefit from the World Cup.
"What I would say is that within the second quarter, group pace was already pacing ahead of 2025. We really have no change to our perspective on the back half of the year. Again, third quarter benefiting from World Cup. We expect the third quarter benefit more than second quarter from the World Cup, because there's a higher demand for the later stage games. And then you layer in the 250th anniversary on top of an existing holiday and obviously [the Salesforce conference]. Fourth quarter, we'll see a lapping of the government shutdown, but that's going to be offset by the election. So this setup was already anticipated in our original guidance, and what we're seeing today is in line with our expectations. I would also just sort of say as it relates to World Cup, it's still early, but we are encouraged by what we're seeing."
