Marriott International saw revenues rise to $5.88 billion in the fourth quarter, up from $5.46 billion a year earlier.

Excluding a charge related to changes in the US tax law and other adjustments, Marriott earned $1.12 per share.

However, fourth quarter reported diluted earnings per share totalled $0.54, a 13 per cent decrease from prior year results.

Arne Sorenson, president and chief executive officer of Marriott International, said: “Last year was a terrific year. 

“We made great progress on the integration of Starwood, capturing significant property and corporate overhead cost synergies while also increasing our worldwide RevPAR index. 

“In the first full year after acquiring Starwood, solid RevPAR gains, strong rooms growth, and property-level margin improvement combined to deliver record fee revenue. 

“With our owners and franchisees, we opened over 76,000 rooms during the year to reach over 1.25 million rooms. 

“Significant new signings drove our development pipeline to a record 460,000 rooms, over 80 percent of which are in the upscale, upper upscale or luxury tiers. 

Compared to combined full year 2016 results, worldwide systemwide RevPAR rose three percent at Marriott during the year; adjusted operating income increased 13 per cent; and adjusted earnings per share increased 32 per cent. 

“We returned $3.5 billion to shareholders in share repurchases and dividends during the year,” added Sorensen.

The company added over 76,000 rooms during 2017, including roughly 11,000 rooms converted from competitor brands and nearly 30,000 rooms in international markets.

At year-end, Marriott’s worldwide development pipeline increased to approximately 2,700 hotels and more than 460,000 rooms, including nearly 34,000 rooms approved, but not yet subject to signed contracts.

“In 2018, we anticipate our number of rooms will increase roughly seven percent gross, while rooms deletions should total one to 1.5 percent during the year,” continue Sorensen.

“We also continue to expect global RevPAR will increase by one to three percent.”