The second quarter of 2026 was a positive one for most publicly traded hotel companies. Several companies opted to raise their full-year outlook based on performance in the quarter.
Events such as the FIFA World Cup and America 250 celebrations boosted U.S. leisure performance in host markets and group demand in non-host markets.
There are some global headwinds worth monitoring, however, chief among them the Iran war in the Middle East and its trickle-down effect on fuel prices.
Read below for commentary from hotel executives on updated 2026 outlooks and how global disruptions will play a factor.
Chris Nassetta, president and CEO, Hilton
“As we look to the second half of the year, we expect underlying RevPAR growth to remain strong across chain scales and segments. We expect U.S. RevPAR to continue to benefit from macro tailwinds.
"We expect the business transient segment to lead as its recovery continues to strengthen into the third quarter. Given this momentum, we're raising our full-year systemwide RevPAR growth expectations to 3% to 3.5%, with third quarter above our full-year range, benefiting from the World Cup and holiday shifts, and fourth quarter a bit below due to calendar shifts and midterm elections.”
Jennifer Mason, executive vice president and chief financial officer, Marriott International
"We are raising our full-year global RevPAR guidance to 3% to 3.5% growth, reflecting our second-quarter global outperformance as well as stronger outlook for the second half of the year for all regions. Note that the strong World Cup performance in June and July provided a slightly larger boost to full-year global RevPAR than expected at closer to 45 basis points globally, above our prior expectation of 30 to 35 basis points.
"Third-quarter global RevPAR is expected to increase 3.5% to 4%. In the U.S. and Canada, we expect the strong demand trends that extended into July across chain scales and customer segments to continue. Third-quarter RevPAR is expected to be helped by the strong World Cup performance, while the fourth quarter could see a small negative impact from November's midterm elections.
"In Greater China, full-year RevPAR is expected to be up 2% to 3%. In APEC, we anticipate continued strength in the back half of the year, driven by solid domestic and international demand, especially from the U.S. CALA performance continues to be led by strong leisure demand across the Caribbean, offsetting weakness in Mexico. EMEA is expected to continue to be impacted by the conflict in the Middle East, though to a lesser extent than previously anticipated. Year-over-year RevPAR in EMEA is expected to improve in the third quarter relative to the second quarter before moderating again in the fourth quarter. In the fourth quarter, the Middle East faces difficult comparisons from the fourth quarter of 2025, where several large events drove meaningful ADR increases.
"In addition, because the Middle East enters its peak tourism season in October, the region's performance will have a greater impact on EMEA's fourth-quarter results than it did in the third quarter."
Joan Bottarini, chief financial officer, Hyatt Hotels Corp.
“While we continue to expect positive full-year net package RevPAR growth in the Americas, we now expect third-quarter net package RevPAR to be moderately below last year. Despite these temporary regional headwinds, we are increasingly encouraged by the strength of our core fee business in the United States.
"We are increasing our full-year systemwide RevPAR growth outlook to between 3.5% and 4.5%. We now expect full-year RevPAR growth in the United States of between 3% and 4%. We expect RevPAR growth in international markets, excluding the impact of the conflict in the Middle East, to be slightly higher than the United States for the full year."
Scott Oaksmith, chief financial officer, Choice Hotels International
"Based on our second-quarter performance and the underlying operating trends we've discussed today, we are raising our full-year guidance for adjusted EBITDA, U.S. RevPAR, U.S. average royalty rate and global net rooms growth. We are also raising the lower end of our global RevPAR guidance range.
"Overall, the progress we've discussed this morning reinforces our confidence that improving execution is translating into stronger operating performance, positioning us to create long-term shareholder value."
Jim Risoleo, CEO and executive director, Host Hotels & Resorts
"We continue to expect strong leisure demand, modest improvements to short-term group booking trends, and stable business transient demand. As a result of our second-quarter outperformance and improved outlook for the second half of the year, we are raising our 2026 comparable hotel total RevPAR and RevPAR growth guidance ranges to 4.75% to 5.25% over 2025. It is important to note that our RevPAR and total RevPAR growth guidance ranges are now in line. This reflects the outsized rate growth we achieved in the first half of the year and our expectation that rate growth will normalize in the second half of the year.
"Looking ahead, we are optimistic about the travel environment, which is supported by resilient demand trends and a continued preference among high-end consumers for experiential travel. Industry fundamentals in the second quarter reflected strong RevPAR growth driven by sustained rate strength, while new supply across our markets and chain scales remains near historic lows."
Jon Bortz, chairman and CEO, Pebblebrook Hotel Trust
"[The third quarter] is off to a great start with July proving to be stronger than we expected. Short-term pickup has surprised to the upside, and we think this indicates that summer vacation travel is starting strong, continuing the positive leisure trends from Q2. Having July Fourth fall on a Saturday provided a big lift to our portfolio overall and probably a much bigger lift than the weekend-related America 250 events.
"Group pace for the third quarter is also favorable. Corporate travel growth remains strong and leisure travel is accelerating and allowing us to average higher prices through less discounting, fewer promotions and reduced use of lower-priced wholesale channels. Based on preliminary results through the 25th, July RevPAR is on pace to grow between 7% and 8% over last year. However, we're not prepared to extrapolate July's unusually strong short-term pickup across the entire quarter.
"Our Q3 range preserves a prudent allowance for shorter booking windows, potential macroeconomic and policy-related volatility and the impact of geopolitical events.
"For Q3, our outlook assumes same-property RevPAR growth of 1% to 3%, same-property hotel EBITDA of $100.5 million to $104.5 million, adjusted EBITDA of $92.5 million to $96.5 million and adjusted FFO per share of $0.48 to $0.52.
"When we look at our pace for the second half of the year, as of the end of June, room revenues were pacing ahead of same time last year by 5.5%, which is a total of $10.7 million. About 80% of this revenue pace advantage is being driven by transient with the remaining 20% in group. If pickup for the second half of the year equals last year's pickup, it would translate to RevPAR growth equal to roughly 2.4% in the second half."
Leslie Hale, president and CEO, RLJ Lodging Trust
"While there is considerable geopolitical uncertainty and limited visibility, we are raising our outlook for the full year to reflect our strong second-quarter performance and the ongoing positive trends.
"As we enter the second half of the year, we remain optimistic that a resilient economy and consumer preferences that favor urban leisure experiences will continue to drive healthy demand against a backdrop of muted supply growth.
"As such, our outlook for the remainder of the year assumes the continuation of tailwinds that have supported our performance thus far, including sustained momentum and the recovery of business travel, leisure demand remaining healthy, especially in urban markets."
Aaron Reyes, executive vice president and chief financial officer, Sunstone Hotel Investors
"As part of that information, we are providing an adjusted view of our prior guidance ranges, which reflect the July sale of the Hyatt Regency San Francisco. These adjustments include the estimated gain from the sale and the net impact of the removal of the hotel's earnings for the remainder of the year.
"From here, we have increased our expectations for the year to reflect the outperformance we saw in the second quarter, along with a modest increase from improved near-term trends while still retaining a degree of caution for the balance of the year. Our updated guidance also includes the benefit of lower corporate G&A resulting from a management transition that occurred earlier in the year and the benefit of higher FFO and FFO per share created by our accretive common and preferred stock repurchase activity."