Hilton Hotels has reported a robust financial and operational performance in 2024, with a record new room openings combined with a healthy jump in its net profits.

Announcing its annual results, Hilton says that in the fourth quarter of 2024, it opened 171 hotels, totalling 22,600 rooms, resulting in 17,200 net room additions. It adds that during the quarter, it continued to expand our portfolio in the Asia Pacific market, surpassing 1,000 hotels in the region and with addition of hotels in Bonaire and Paraguay, it expanded its global footprint to 140 countries and territories.

The hotel company says that it also added several luxury hotels to its pipeline in the Middle East and Africa region during the quarter. With more than 500 luxury hotels worldwide, it aims to expand its portfolio in 2025 with the re-opening of the iconic Waldorf Astoria New York, along with the openings of Waldorf Astoria Costa Rica Punta Cacique, Waldorf Astoria Shanghai Qiantan, Waldorf Astoria Osaka, Waldorf Astoria Morocco Rabat Sale, Conrad Hamburg and Conrad Athens.

The company says that it added 34,200 rooms to the development pipeline during the fourth quarter, and, which totalled 3,578 hotels representing 498,600 rooms throughout 118 countries and territories, including 25 new countries and territories. At the end of the year, Hilton’s global footprint was 1.27 million rooms in almost 8,500 hotels across the world.

Financially, too, Hilton reported a healthy performance as its annual net income exceeded projections to reach USD 1,539 million in the full year, on the back of a very strong USD 505 million generated in the fourth quarter of 2024.

It says that the adjusted Earning Before Interest, Tax, Depreciation and Amortisation (EBITDA) was USD 858 million for the fourth quarter and USD 3,429 million for the full year, again exceeding the high end of the projections by the company.

Christopher J Nassetta

The company says that full year 2025 system-wide Revenue Per Available Room (RevPAR) is projected to increase between 2-3 pc on a comparable and currency neutral basis compared to 2024 and full year net income is projected to be between USD 1,829-1,858, while the full year adjusted EBITDA is projected to be between USD 3,700 million and USD 3,740 million.

“We are pleased to report a strong fourth quarter, with both top and bottom line results exceeding our expectations. All segments drove RevPAR outperformance, with strong trends in leisure occupancy, as well as continued growth in business transient and group results, and we expect favorable trends to continue into 2025. We also delivered the highest number of approvals, construction starts and openings in our history in 2024, helping us achieve net unit growth of 7.3 pc. With a development pipeline of nearly half a million rooms, we are confident that we are well positioned to deliver net unit growth between 6-7 pc in 2025,” says Christopher J Nassetta, President and Chief Executive Officer of Hilton.