Sources: Best in Class: What Hotel Name is Worth Checking Into?

Every figure in the piece is keyed below to its source and as-of date. Figures derived by calculation are labeled as such, with their inputs shown so the arithmetic can be reproduced. Where a source publishes a caveat on its own number, that caveat is carried into the piece rather than left here.

Figure by figure

Figure 1. Fee comparison, Hilton against Marriott. Hilton Q2 2026: franchise and licensing $808M plus base and other management $99M equals $907M charted as franchise plus base management; incentive management $69M; total gross fees $976M. Full revenue excluding $1,982M of cost reimbursements is $1,359M, adding ownership revenue of $311M and other revenue of $72M; franchise and licensing is 59.5% of that total, reported as 59%, and including reimbursements the revenue base is 2.46 times larger, reported as roughly two and a half. Marriott Q2 2026: franchise and base management fees $1,366M, reported by Marriott in a single caption, incentive management fees $212M, total gross fees $1,578M. Marriott reports owned, leased, and other revenue net of expense, $49M, which is not comparable to Hilton’s gross ownership revenue and is excluded from the chart; the piece says so. Marriott’s system of 1,813,698 rooms against Hilton’s 1,384,842 is 1.31 times larger, reported as about a third bigger; the Marriott count is confirmed in its Q2 2026 10-Q as 10,082 properties and 1,813,698 rooms at June 30, 2026. As of June 30, 2026. Hilton Q2 2026 Form 10-Q · Marriott Q2 2026 earnings release

Figure 2. Owned and leased rooms as a share of system rooms. Hilton 46 owned or leased properties and 15,286 rooms against 1,384,842 system rooms, or 1.104%, shown as 110 basis points. The June 30, 2026 10-Q states the ownership segment as 46 hotels with 15,286 rooms and the total system as 9,453 properties with 1,384,842 rooms, which reconciles with the management and franchise segment count of 1,369,556 rooms; an earlier draft used the March 31, 2026 system count of 1,363,441. Marriott 50 properties and 13,333 rooms against 1,813,698 system rooms, or 0.735%, shown as 73 basis points. As of June 30, 2026. Hilton Q2 2026 Form 10-Q · Marriott Q2 2026 Form 10-Q

Figure 3. Marriott’s card book. Co-brand credit card fees of $716M in 2025. Marriott guided this line to grow approximately 35% with its FY2025 results in February 2026, and its CFO described growth “in the high 30% range” on the Q2 2026 call; the $966M charted for 2026 is $716M times 1.35 and is the author’s derivation, not a company figure. Against the FY2026 gross fee guidance of $6.03B to $6.06B, raised on August 3 (an earlier draft used the pre-raise range of $6.025B to $6.055B), the $6,045M midpoint puts the derived book at 16.0% of gross fees. The owner campaign referenced in the piece: 51 owners representing nearly 1,000 Marriott-branded hotels signed a letter in March 2026 seeking a share of card economics and revised redemption reimbursement; Marriott announced an owner rebate program on August 3, 2026. Marriott 2026 card fee guidance coverage · Marriott Q2 2026 earnings call transcript · Owner rebate program coverage, August 3, 2026

Figure 4. The increments from the new agreements. Approximately $30M of incremental co-brand fees in 2026 on a partial year of the new Chase and American Express agreements, and $100M to $125M annually by 2028, at a 26% royalty rate. The piece describes the rate as one Marriott had not published before, which coverage of the call supports; whether any hotel company had ever published a co-brand royalty rate could not be confirmed in either direction, so no industry-first claim is made. Per the Q2 2026 call, these figures are the incremental impact of the new terms alone and are additive to the existing card book in Figure 3; an earlier draft of this piece described them as the mature card economics, which was wrong, and the correction is reflected throughout. Disclosed August 3, 2026. Marriott Q2 2026 results and earnings call · Q2 2026 call transcript

Figure 5. Hilton’s undisaggregated licensing disclosure. A $34M quarterly and $42M half-year increase in licensing fees attributed jointly to co-branded credit card arrangements, Hilton Grand Vacations license fees, and branded residential fees. The three components are not separated in the filing. No term or expiry for the American Express agreement appears in any Hilton filing; the arrangement has been exclusive in the United States since January 1, 2018. American Express’s FY2025 Form 10-K names Hilton as a co-brand partner and quantifies only Delta, at approximately 13% of worldwide billed business and 21% of Card Member loans, with that agreement running through 2029. As of June 30, 2026 and December 31, 2025 respectively. Hilton Q2 2026 Form 10-Q · American Express FY2025 Form 10-K

Figure 6. Delta against the hotel card book. American Express remuneration to Delta of $8.2B in 2025, up 11% year over year, with Delta projecting $9B for 2026 and a stated $10B longer-term target. Marriott FY2026 gross fee guidance midpoint of $6.05B, and the derived card book of approximately $0.97B from Figure 3. The ratio of Delta’s 2025 remuneration to the derived Marriott book is 8.5x, reported as more than 8 times. Hilton’s card book is undisclosed and is stated as unchartable rather than estimated. Amex’s concentration figures for Delta (approximately 13% of worldwide billed business, 21% of Card Member loans, agreement through 2029) are from Amex’s FY2025 Form 10-K. Delta figures per FY2025 results, January 2026. Delta FY2025 results · American Express FY2025 Form 10-K · Marriott Q2 2026 guidance

Figure 7. Loyalty-related balance sheet items. Contract liabilities $2,354M at December 31, 2025 and $2,409M at June 30, 2026, with $536M received in advance of performance and $347M of previously deferred amounts recognized during the period. The 10-Q rollforward ties in full: $2,354M plus $536M received in advance, less $347M recognized, less $134M of other reductions, equals $2,409M. An earlier draft, working from notes that omitted the other line, said the components did not reconcile; the primary filing shows they do. Of the $2,409M ending balance, $1,550M is deferred Hilton Honors revenue recognized over approximately two years. The guest loyalty program liability is a separate item at $3,077M, up from $2,913M. The two are not additive. As of June 30, 2026 against December 31, 2025. Hilton Q2 2026 Form 10-Q

Figure 8. Cash raised against loyalty programs, 2020 to 2021. American raised $10.0B against AAdvantage (March 2021), Delta $9.0B against SkyMiles (September 2020), and United $6.8B against MileagePlus (June 2020), a combined $25.8B of loyalty-backed financing; United’s transaction valued MileagePlus at $21.9B, 12 times its 2019 EBITDA. Hilton pre-sold $1.0B of Hilton Honors points to American Express for cash in April 2020, bringing the charted total to $26.8B. The 2026 third-party program appraisals cited in the paragraph (SkyMiles $31.7B, AAdvantage $26.7B, MileagePlus $25.3B) are On Point Loyalty estimates and are labeled in the piece as appraisals, not transactions. Hilton April 2020 points pre-sale · Airline loyalty financing coverage · On Point Loyalty 2026 ranking coverage

Figure 9. IHG member contribution, used as a peer proxy. Approximately 67% of global room nights and 73% of US room nights from loyalty members, with 83% enterprise contribution to rooms revenue. Hilton publishes no comparable member room-night penetration statistic, which is why an IHG figure appears in a Hilton piece and is labeled as a proxy for the mechanism rather than as a Hilton number. Six months ended June 30, 2026. IHG H1 2026 interim results

Figure 10. Members per system room, six programs. Hilton 260M members over 1,384,842 rooms, 187.7. Hyatt 69M over 377,886, 182.6. Marriott 295M over 1,813,698, 162.7. IHG 160M over 1,048,731, 152.6. Wyndham 126M over 873,400, 144.3. Choice 77M over 661,089, 116.5. Membership counts are unaudited marketing disclosures with no stated activity threshold and are not defined consistently across companies. Author’s calculation from the two inputs in each case. Hyatt’s membership (approximately 69M, up 17% year over year) and room count (377,886) are from its Q2 2026 results; Choice’s membership (77M, up 7% following the Choice Privileges relaunch) is from its Q2 2026 earnings call and its room count (661,089 across 7,608 hotels) from its Q2 2026 release. Room counts as of June 30, 2026. Hilton · Hyatt Q2 2026 results · Marriott · IHG · Wyndham · Choice Q2 2026 results

Figure 11. Fee per occupied room night, derived. Hilton: 1,384,842 rooms times 91 days times 74.9% occupancy equals 94.4M room nights; $976M of fee revenue divided by 94.4M equals $10.34. Marriott: 1,813,698 times 91 times 71.6% equals 118.2M room nights; $1,578M of gross fee revenue divided by 118.2M equals $13.35. Implied take rate on derived room revenue is 6.2% and 6.9% respectively. Author’s calculation. The inputs are not perfectly matched: occupancy is reported on a comparable-hotel, currency-neutral basis while room counts are total system, and Marriott’s room count includes timeshare and residences while Hilton’s excludes Hilton Grand Vacations. Both mismatches inflate Hilton’s denominator relative to Marriott’s, so the reported Marriott advantage is a lower bound. Quarter ended June 30, 2026. Hilton Q2 2026 results · Marriott Q2 2026 results

Figure 12. Net rooms growth, five companies. Hilton FY2026 guidance of 6% to 7%, shown at the 6.5% midpoint. Marriott guiding toward the low end of 4.5% to 5%, shown at 4.75%. IHG H1 2026 net system size growth of 5.0% year over year, on a global estate of 1,048,731 rooms across 7,109 hotels. Hyatt Q2 2026 net rooms growth of 3.9% year over year, 4.4% excluding certain Playa rooms. Choice global net rooms growth of 2.6% year over year at June 30, 2026. The chart mixes guidance (Hilton, Marriott) with trailing actuals (IHG, Hyatt, Choice); the caption labels which is which. At the guidance midpoints, 6.5% of Hilton’s 1,384,842-room base is 90,015 rooms in a year, reported as roughly 90,000, and 4.75% is 65,780, reported as about 66,000. As of June 30, 2026 or issued August 2026. Hilton · Marriott · IHG H1 2026 · Hyatt Q2 2026 · Choice Q2 2026

Figure 13. Enterprise value build. Hilton closed at $327.21 and Marriott at $356.72 on August 14, 2026, with market capitalizations of $73.64B on 225.06M shares and $93.02B on 260.77M shares, all from a single source at a single common close. Hilton net debt $12,380M and Marriott net debt $16.4B, each as stated by the company at June 30, 2026. Enterprise values: $86.02B and $109.42B. Prices as of the August 14, 2026 close. stockanalysis.com/stocks/hlt · stockanalysis.com/stocks/mar

Figure 14. Enterprise value to adjusted EBITDA, six names. All prices are the August 14, 2026 close from stockanalysis.com; market capitalizations at that close are scaled from the same source’s latest reported capitalization by the ratio of the August 14 close to the latest close, which holds the share count fixed. Hilton: $73.64B market cap plus $12,380M net debt ($13,444M total debt less $1,064M cash per the 10-Q) over the $4,060M guidance midpoint equals 21.19x, reported as 21.2x. Marriott: $93.02B plus $16.4B ($16.9B less $0.5B) over the $6,000M midpoint of the August 3 raised guidance equals 18.24x, reported as 18.2x; an earlier draft used a $5,995M pre-raise midpoint and reported 18.3x. IHG: $160.22 ADR close, $23.62B capitalization, plus $3,663M net debt over $1,392M of company-disclosed trailing twelve month adjusted EBITDA equals 19.60x, reported as 19.6x; this reproduces IHG’s own reported 2.6x net debt to EBITDA (3,663 over 1,392 equals 2.63). IHG is the only name not on a guidance basis because it does not guide EBITDA; the caption says so. Hyatt: $180.98 close, $17.05B capitalization, plus $3,694M net debt ($4.3B less $606M) over the $1,180M midpoint of $1,155M to $1,205M guidance equals 17.58x, reported as 17.6x. Wyndham: $73.63 close, $5.46B capitalization, plus $2,606M net debt ($2,675M less $69M) over the $740M midpoint of raised $735M to $745M guidance equals 10.90x, reported as 10.9x. Choice: $104.44 close, $4.66B capitalization, plus $1,957M net debt ($2.00B long-term debt less $42.8M cash) over the $642.5M midpoint of $635M to $650M guidance equals 10.30x, reported as 10.3x. The 16% premium and roughly 14% convergence downside in the conditionals are Hilton against Marriott only. Multiples are author’s calculations. stockanalysis.com · Hyatt Q2 2026 results · Wyndham Q2 2026 results · Choice Q2 2026 10-Q coverage · IHG H1 2026 results The valuation comparison is deliberately restricted to Hilton and Marriott: a single verified common close was available for those two names, and extending the table to Wyndham, Choice, Hyatt, IHG, Host and Park would have required mixing pricing dates. Those companies appear in the piece for operating metrics only, where pricing date does not affect the figure. Prices as of the August 14, 2026 close; guidance per Q2 2026 releases.

Figure 15. Growth against the multiple gap. FY2026 guided adjusted EBITDA growth of 9.0% at Hilton and 11.4% at Marriott. Q2 2026 total fee revenue growth of 6.4% and 12.7%. Net unit growth guidance at midpoints of 6.5% and 4.75%. Quarter ended June 30, 2026, and FY2026 guidance as issued August 2026. Hilton Q2 2026 results · Marriott Q2 2026 results

Figure 16. The asset-heavy contrast. Host comparable hotel EBITDA margin 31.9%, total assets $13.3B, net debt 2.2x, FY2026 adjusted EBITDAre midpoint $1.83B. Park net debt 6.1x, FY2026 adjusted EBITDA $617M to $637M, midpoint $627M, charted at $0.63B. Hilton total assets $16.9B, book equity negative $6,303M, FY2026 guided adjusted EBITDA $4.06B. Hilton’s negative book equity is the accumulated result of share repurchases exceeding retained earnings and is not an indicator of distress; the piece says so. As of and guided for periods ended June 30, 2026. Host Hotels Q2 2026 results · Park Hotels Q2 2026 results · Hilton Q2 2026 Form 10-Q

The asset-light conversion, dates, order, and reasons

Marriott, October 8, 1993. Marriott Corporation split into Host Marriott, which kept the real estate, 139 hotels Marriott had built to sell but could not because of the real estate recession, and about $2.1 billion of the company’s roughly $3 billion of debt, and Marriott International, which took the management and franchise business close to debt-free. CFO Stephen Bollenbach joined March 1, 1992 and began considering the separation within days of arriving. Bondholder litigation followed the split. This is the origin of the modern hotel asset-light structure. Host Hotels corporate history · Washington Post, July 24, 1993 · Baltimore Sun bondholder coverage, 1993

IHG, 2003 to 2015. Following the April 2003 Six Continents separation, IHG sold roughly 200 hotels for almost $8 billion, ending the period with seven owned or leased properties, and returned capital to shareholders along the way, including a $750 million special dividend and a $500 million buyback in 2014. Its stated rationale in its annual filings: fee streams are less volatile than ownership income, the franchised and managed model is highly cash generative, and it carries a high return on capital employed. IHG disposal announcements · IHG FY2014 Form 20-F

Hilton, January 3, 2017. Blackstone acquired Hilton in October 2007 for $26 billion, financed with $20.5 billion of debt and $5.6 billion of equity, months before the credit markets seized. Following the December 2013 IPO, Hilton completed the three-way spin-off effective January 3, 2017: Park Hotels & Resorts took the real estate as a REIT, exempt from corporate income tax provided it distributes at least 90% of taxable income, and Hilton Grand Vacations took the timeshare business, with both trading on the NYSE from January 4, 2017. Nassetta’s stated rationale: three pure-play companies with dedicated management teams, capital markets efficiencies, and tax efficiencies. Hilton spin-off announcement, February 2016 · Hilton completion announcement, January 2017 · Nareit coverage · Blackstone 2007 announcement

The rest of the industry. Hyatt acquired Playa Hotels & Resorts on June 17, 2025, and completed the sale of Playa’s owned real estate portfolio to Tortuga Resorts for approximately $2.0 billion on December 30, 2025, entering 50-year management agreements for 13 of the 15 properties; the net purchase price of the retained management business was approximately $555 million. Hyatt has committed to at least $2 billion of further proceeds from asset sales and has said it expects its asset-light earnings mix to exceed 90% in 2027. Reports differ on whether the disposition deadline is end of 2027 or 2028, so the piece states the commitment without a year. Accor sold 55% of AccorInvest, a portfolio of 891 hotels of which 324 were owned and 567 leased, for 4.4 billion euros in 2018 to a group including PIF, GIC, Credit Agricole Assurances, Colony NorthStar, and Amundi. Wyndham describes itself as the world’s largest hotel franchisor, with franchisees operating the vast majority of its system; its Q2 2026 results confirmed Wyndham Rewards above 126 million members, up 9%, and maintained net room growth guidance of 4% to 4.5% excluding insolvent Revo Hospitality Group rooms, which is the basis of the sector table’s growth cell. Choice’s FY2025 Form 10-K likewise describes a franchise business, with 7,575 hotels open at December 31, 2025. Four Seasons manages 121 hotels and resorts and 46 residential properties for outside owners; Cascade Investment paid $2.21 billion in September 2021 to raise its stake in the management company from 47.5% to 71.25%, buying the remaining half of Kingdom Holding’s position. Hyatt Playa sale completion, December 30, 2025 · Hyatt Tortuga announcement · Hyatt asset-light coverage · AccorInvest sale coverage · Choice FY2025 Form 10-K · Cascade and Four Seasons, September 2021

The marketplace and airline comparison. Airbnb FY2025: revenue of $12.24 billion, up 10%, on gross booking value of $91.3 billion across 533.0 million nights and experiences booked, an implied take of 13.4%; Airbnb has no loyalty program, is trialing booking credits, and its chief executive has said any future program will not follow the points model of Marriott Bonvoy or Hilton Honors. Booking Holdings FY2025: revenue of $26.9 billion, up 13%, on gross bookings of $186.1 billion, up 12%, across more than 1.2 billion room nights, an implied take of roughly 14.5%. Expedia Group FY2025: revenue of $14.733 billion on gross bookings of $119.590 billion, both up 8%, across 415.4 million booked room nights, an implied take of 12.3%; One Key is its cross-brand rewards program, and Vrbo is an Expedia Group brand that participates in One Key with no separately disclosed financials, which is how the comparison table presents it. United collects roughly $3.2 billion a year from Chase for the MileagePlus co-brand, per 2024 coverage of the program; United’s own filings report this inside other operating revenue without a single co-brand line, so the figure is coverage-sourced and labeled roughly. Marriott’s table row uses the 0.74% owned share from Figure 2, the 295M Bonvoy members from Figure 10, and the 6.9% derived take from Figure 11. Hilton’s 6.2% take on derived room revenue in the comparison table is the author’s calculation from Figure 11. Delta’s $8.2 billion of 2025 Amex remuneration is keyed under Figure 6. Hilton’s brand portfolio more than doubled under Nassetta with brands launched in-house rather than acquired, per his own repeated statements; Marriott acquired Starwood in 2016. The sector table in “What Are These Companies Today?” uses the room counts, membership counts, and growth figures keyed under Figures 10 and 12, plus the ownership items keyed under Figure 2 and the asset-light conversion section. Airbnb Q4 2025 shareholder letter · Airbnb FY2025 Form 10-K · Airbnb loyalty coverage · Booking Holdings Q4 2025 release · Expedia Group FY2025 results · Hilton organic brand strategy

Test properties. The characterization of the three companies’ remaining owned and leased hotels as test properties for new products, standards, and brand concepts is the author’s, based on the companies’ operating practice, and is not tied to a single filing.

The scorecard and the conclusion

Every row of the scorecard reuses a figure keyed above: members per room from Figure 10, net unit growth from Figure 12, fee per room night and take rate from Figure 11, card disclosure from Figures 3 through 5, asset-light share from Figure 2, loyalty demand disclosure from Figure 9, and the multiples from Figure 14. The conclusion’s ratios are author’s calculations from the same inputs: Hilton’s 1,384,842 rooms are 76.4% of Marriott’s 1,813,698, stated as 76% the size, and net unit growth guidance midpoints of 6.5% against 4.75% make Hilton’s growth 36.8% faster, stated as more than 33% faster. The 16% premium and the roughly 14% convergence downside are from Figure 14’s multiples.

Risk list

The view in risk one, that a bull market with filling hotels makes a near-term contraction unlikely and that card partnership streams, annual card fees and issuer payments that do not reprice with nightly room demand, would cushion the companies relative to prior cycles, is the author’s. No downturn data is cited for it.

Travel demand and consumer data

Owner economics and regulation

Charge-out and fee changes. Marriott reduced global loyalty charge-out rates by roughly 5%. Hilton reduced loyalty fees and launched Hilton Rise, together worth 75 to 100 basis points of owner margin by Christopher Nassetta’s own estimate on the Q2 2026 call. Hilton Q2 2026 earnings call

Interchange. The Visa and Mastercard settlement received preliminary approval on June 9, 2026. The pending Credit Card Competition Act and that settlement both address merchant interchange rather than co-brand royalties, so the transmission channel to a hotel franchisor runs indirectly through issuer reward budgets.

Corrections and source conflicts

The 2017 Amex exclusivity report. The Dow Jones report that American Express had won exclusive Hilton issuing rights carried a published correction, which misstated the company’s full name. The substance of the report, the exclusivity itself, was corroborated independently by Bloomberg on June 1, 2017. The correction goes to the name, not to the fact relied on here.

The interchange settlement figure. The Visa and Mastercard settlement has been reprinted by aggregators as “$38 million.” The correct figure is an estimate of roughly $38 billion in cumulative merchant savings, and it is not a cash settlement fund. The piece does not cite a dollar figure for the settlement at all.

Marriott expense reclassification. In Q4 2025 Marriott reclassified amounts from “General, administrative, and other” to “Owned, leased, and other expense,” affecting $35M in Q2 2025 and $71M in H1 2025. This impairs year-over-year comparability of both captions. No figure in this piece depends on either caption.

Not sourced

Hilton and Marriott closing prices for December 31, 2025 could not be obtained from the same source used for the August 14, 2026 closes. No year-to-date figure appears anywhere in the piece as a result. Every market-derived number shown rests on the August 14, 2026 close alone.