Hilton Worldwide's fourth-quarter business transient revenue per available room declined 2.1 percent year over year, hindered by the impact of the U.S. government shutdown, the company announced Wednesday in a quarterly earnings call.
CEO Christopher Nassetta during the call said that, despite shutdown-related headwinds, December proved to be the best month for systemwide RevPAR growth, up 1.7 percent, owing to strength in leisure and group travel and a pickup in business transient.
Fourth-quarter group RevPAR increased 2.6 percent year over year, driven by corporate meeting demand combined with strong international group growth. Nassetta said group booking pace for 2026 is running ahead of 2025, particularly for citywide conventions and corporate meetings.
"Booking windows remain shorter than they were pre-pandemic, especially for smaller corporate groups," Nassetta said. "Customers still want flexibility, but they are committing."
Nassetta reiterated optimism for 2026, pointing to strength in group and continued improvement in business travel in January and early February, despite last month's U.S. winter storms.
"Coming out of the third quarter, I felt reasonably optimistic about 2025 being a decent year but believed that 2026—and frankly beyond—would be stronger," Nassetta said. "What's different now versus a few quarters ago is that we're actually seeing it in the data. … We're seeing improvement midweek, in business transient, and in midscale and upper-midscale hotels."
Detailing some of the other factors supporting Hilton's outlook, Nassetta pointed to recent U.S. government deregulation and tax policy changes, increased investment and improved workforce productivity tied to AI, real wage growth in the middle-class and the expectation that U.S. interest rates would come down as inflation declines.
Hilton Q4 Metrics
Hilton's fourth-quarter systemwide comparable RevPAR rose 0.5 percent year over year to $110.89. Systemwide occupancy was 69.6 percent, down 0.3 percentage points. Average daily rate hit $159.25, up 0.9 percent from the prior year.
Full-year 2025 RevPAR increased 0.4 percent year over year to $114.39. Occupancy dipped 0.1 percentage points to 71.5 percent, while ADR increased 0.5 percent to $159.89.
Hilton projects systemwide RevPAR to increase 1 percent to 2 percent year over year for both the first quarter and full-year 2026.
Fourth-quarter total revenue grew 10.9 percent year over year to $3.1 billion, and full-year total revenue increased 7.7 percent to $12 billion.
Hilton's development pipeline as of Dec. 31 included 520,500 rooms across 3,703 properties, up about 4 percent from the year prior. Full-year net unit growth was 6.7 percent.
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