Marriott International has reported fourth-quarter profit rose 28 per cent to $181 million, or 56 cents a share, from $141 million a year ago.

Revenue at the operator, considered a bellwether in the global hotel industry, rose to $3.76 billion from $3.69 billion.

Marriott also operates the Courtyard, Renaissance and Ritz-Carlton brands.

Analysts surveyed by FactSet had expected the company to post earnings of 55 cents a share on $3.67 billion in revenue.

Marriott shares slipped 0.2 per cent to $40.74 in after-hours trade.

The stock is up nearly 17 per cent over the past 12 months.

Arne Sorenson, president and chief executive officer of Marriott International, said: “We were delighted with our 2012 results. 

“Full year earnings per share grew 31 percent over 2011 adjusted levels to $1.72 and EBITDA increased 16 percent to over $1.1 billion. 

“We also returned over $1.3 billion to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases.

“Worldwide international travel increased to record levels in 2012 while hotel supply growth was low in most markets around the world, especially in the US.

“Despite low levels of new construction in the industry and modest economic growth in some regions of the world, we added over 27,000 rooms to our worldwide system in 2012, increased our worldwide systemwide REVPAR by six per cent and increased room rates by four per cent.

“Our development team had a record year, signing more than 57,000 new rooms and increasing our global development pipeline to nearly 130,000 rooms at year-end. 

“To date in 2013, we’ve already signed over 9,000 rooms with nearly 90 percent of those in Asia.”