Starwood Hotels & Resorts expects another year of accelerated growth in North America, where it will surpass the 600th hotel milestone in the next two months.

The company’s growth is being driven by the rapid expansion of its Specialty Select Brands, the continued growth of its Upper Upscale brands and increased demand for luxury hotel offerings.

“North America remains one of Starwood’s most important global markets accounting for approximately 50 per cent of our global portfolio and a third of our hotel openings in 2014, and we expect strong growth trends to continue this year,” said Simon Turner, president of global development for Starwood Hotels & Resorts.

“The ongoing economic recovery and increased availability of financing are creating favourable conditions, contributing to strong growth across all three segments of our business and a notable surge in demand for new-build hotels, which comprised 81 per cent of our North America signings in 2014,” Turner added.

In 2014, Starwood opened 23 new hotels and signed 64 new hotel deals in North America, a 23 per cent signings increase over the previous year and the most deals signed in one year since before the global economic crisis.

“We are experiencing robust growth across all nine of our globally admired lifestyle brands, both for new build projects and the repositioning of existing assets,” said Allison Reid, senior vice president of North America Development for Starwood Hotels & Resorts.

“We highly value our relationships with our owners and franchisees, and continue to see strong interest from partners looking to leverage Starwood’s powerful brands and network, global booking platforms and loyal customer base,” Reid added.