Marriott International (MAR) — 2026 Q2 Earnings Preview

Report date: Monday, August 3, 2026
Earnings release: Approximately 7:00 a.m. ET
Conference call: 8:30 a.m. ET
Closing share price on July 31: $372.87

Investment view going into the report

Marriott enters earnings with a constructive operating backdrop but a relatively demanding valuation. U.S. travel trends improved materially during the first quarter, development activity remains strong, and rapidly growing co-branded credit-card and residential fees should allow earnings to grow much faster than RevPAR.

The central question is therefore not simply whether Marriott meets its second-quarter EPS guidance. Investors will be more focused on:

Whether U.S. demand remained broad-based through June and July.
How much the Middle East conflict and related air-travel disruption reduced international RevPAR.
Whether management maintains or raises its full-year outlook.
Whether net room growth remains on track for 4.5%–5%.
The timing and economics of Marriott’s U.S. co-branded credit-card renewal.

The setup looks favorable enough for a solid quarter, but MAR’s share appreciation and premium earnings multiple leave less room for a merely in-line result accompanied by cautious commentary.

The numbers to anchor on

Metric	Q1 2026 actual	Q2 2026 company guidance	FY2026 company guidance
Global RevPAR growth	4.2%	1.5%–2.5%	2.0%–3.0%
Gross fee revenue	$1.43B	$1.538B–$1.553B	$5.925B–$5.985B
Adjusted EBITDA	$1.398B	$1.525B–$1.550B	$5.880B–$5.970B
Adjusted diluted EPS	$2.72	$2.99–$3.06	$11.38–$11.63
Net room growth	4.5% trailing 12 months	—	4.5%–5.0%
Capital return	More than $1.2B through April 29	—	More than $4.4B

At the midpoints, Marriott guided to approximately:

10% gross fee growth in Q2.
9% adjusted EBITDA growth.
14% adjusted EPS growth.

That earnings growth is notable given anticipated RevPAR growth of only about 2%. It illustrates the importance of room additions, ancillary fees and share repurchases to the Marriott model.

1. RevPAR: strong U.S. trends versus a severe Middle East drag

U.S. demand is the principal positive

First-quarter U.S. and Canada RevPAR increased 4%, with performance improving through the quarter and remaining strong in April. Importantly, the improvement was broad:

Luxury RevPAR increased nearly 7%.
Select-service RevPAR improved to approximately 3.5% growth after declining more than 1% in the fourth quarter.
Leisure RevPAR increased 5%.
Group RevPAR increased 5%.
Business-transient RevPAR increased 2%, although room nights remained slightly lower.

The rebound in select service was particularly encouraging because it suggested travel strength was broadening beyond affluent leisure customers. Management attributed the improvement partly to domestic and drive-to travel, stronger tax refunds, limited U.S. hotel supply growth and consumers’ continued preference for experiences over goods.

For Q2, investors should watch whether that improvement held through the entire quarter. A reversal in select-service trends would raise questions about lower- and middle-income travel demand; continued growth would strengthen the case that U.S. lodging demand is healthier than broader consumer-confidence indicators imply.

Group and World Cup demand should help

Marriott said its full-year group booking pace was approximately 5% ahead, providing a meaningful base of booked business. The company also retained its forecast that the 2026 World Cup would contribute 30–35 basis points to full-year global RevPAR growth, primarily during Q2 and Q3.

Useful call commentary would include:

Actual World Cup room-rate and occupancy performance.
Whether transient bookings replaced expected group-block cancellations.
Any evidence of demand displacement before or after match dates.
Whether the benefit remains consistent with the 30–35-basis-point estimate.

The Middle East is the largest source of uncertainty

Management previously expected Middle East RevPAR to decline approximately 50% in Q2, after falling more than 30% in March. The comparison is especially difficult because Middle East and Africa systemwide RevPAR increased 14% in Q2 2025.

Marriott assumed the conflict would reduce full-year global RevPAR growth by 100–125 basis points. The region represents only about 3% of Marriott’s open rooms and roughly 3% of 2025 gross fees, limiting its direct financial weight, but the secondary effects matter:

Lower Middle East hotel demand.
Reduced capacity through major connecting hubs.
Weaker long-haul travel into India, the Maldives and other Asian markets.
Higher fuel prices and airfares.
Potential changes in international travel sentiment.

Sequential improvement in Middle East bookings would be an upside. Evidence that disruption is spreading into Europe or a wider set of Asia-Pacific markets would be more concerning than the direct regional decline itself.

2. Fee growth should remain much stronger than RevPAR

Marriott’s fee mix is an important part of the earnings case. In Q1, gross fee revenue increased 12% despite RevPAR growth of 4.2%.

The largest drivers included:

Co-branded credit-card fees: up 37% in Q1 and expected to rise approximately 35% for the year.
Residential branding fees: up more than 70% in Q1 and expected to more than double in Q2.
Net room growth: 4.5% over the trailing 12 months.
Higher RevPAR and hotel-level revenues.

This creates a resilient earnings profile, but investors should distinguish between the sources of any beat:

A beat driven by stronger RevPAR, base fees and incentive management fees would signal better lodging fundamentals.
A beat driven principally by residential fee timing or other episodic items would be lower quality.
Strong credit-card fee growth is attractive and recurring, although some of the current acceleration may reflect contractual economics rather than hotel demand.

Management previously guided Q2 incentive management fees to decline by a mid-single-digit percentage because of lower hotel profitability in the Middle East. The size of that decline will provide a useful read-through on the international disruption.

3. Full-year guidance will likely drive the stock reaction

Marriott raised its global RevPAR outlook in May to 2%–3%, despite incorporating substantial Middle East weakness. It also raised full-year gross fee, EBITDA and EPS guidance.

What could support another increase

U.S. RevPAR remaining near or above Q1 levels.
Better-than-assumed World Cup pricing.
Faster Middle East recovery.
Continued strength in Greater China.
Credit-card and residential fees exceeding expectations.
Faster room openings or fewer deletions.
Additional share repurchases reducing diluted shares.

What could lead to caution or a reduction

Middle East disruption continuing longer than anticipated.
Higher oil prices materially affecting air travel.
Weakening U.S. select-service or business-transient demand.
Softer summer leisure booking trends.
Greater spillover into Asia-Pacific travel corridors.
Continued weakness at Mexican luxury resorts.
A more conservative view of the second half, including the expected Q4 drag from the U.S. midterm election cycle.

The composition of any guidance change matters. A higher EPS forecast supported only by share repurchases or non-RevPAR fees would be less bullish than a RevPAR-led increase.

4. Room growth remains the core long-term earnings engine

At the end of Q1, Marriott had:

Nearly 1.8 million rooms in its system.
Approximately 618,000 rooms in the pipeline.
More than 268,000 pipeline rooms under construction, including pending conversions.
More than half of pipeline rooms outside the U.S. and Canada.

Conversions represented more than 40% of Q1 openings and over 35% of signings. That matters because conversions can generally open faster and with less execution risk than newly constructed hotels.

Investors should look for:

Net room growth remaining within the 4.5%–5% target.
Continued pipeline expansion rather than growth dependent only on converting existing signed projects.
Stable deletion assumptions of roughly 1%–1.5%.
Progress in midscale, where Marriott already had approximately 500 open and pipeline hotels.
Whether geopolitical uncertainty is delaying openings in the Middle East or other international markets.

Marriott’s asset-light model means room growth can translate into fee and earnings growth without proportionate capital requirements. Sustaining close to 5% growth is consequently a major component of the stock’s premium valuation.

5. Credit-card renewal is the largest identifiable catalyst outside operations

Marriott has been negotiating new U.S. co-branded card agreements with Visa, JPMorgan Chase and American Express. The current full-year outlook excludes the impact of those negotiations.

Management previously indicated:

It expected new agreements to be completed later in 2026.
There could be some benefit during 2026.
The larger opportunity would arrive after updated cards are launched, making 2027 the more meaningful earnings year.

Investors will want to know whether the expected signing timeline remains intact. Even if management does not disclose economics, commentary regarding launch timing, member benefits and expected fee uplift could affect 2027 estimates.

A delay would remove an anticipated catalyst. Conversely, a completed agreement with favorable economics could shift attention away from near-term RevPAR volatility and toward a stronger medium-term fee-growth outlook.

6. Capital allocation and valuation raise the bar

Marriott expects to return more than $4.4 billion to shareholders in 2026. Q1 repurchases totaled $700 million, and the lower share count is an important reason adjusted EPS is expected to grow faster than EBITDA.

At $372.87, MAR has:

Risen approximately 20% year to date.
Risen roughly 46% over the past year.
Pulled back about 7% from its June high.
Traded at approximately 32 times the midpoint of management’s 2026 adjusted EPS guidance.

That valuation reflects confidence in Marriott’s room-growth runway, loyalty platform, credit-card economics and asset-light cash generation. It also means an earnings beat may not be enough if management signals that RevPAR is slowing or if the full-year guidance is only maintained at the midpoint.

The most favorable combination for the stock would be:

Q2 results above the upper half of guidance, stable or better July trends, continued 4.5%–5% room growth, and an increase in full-year fee or EPS expectations.

The least favorable combination would be:

An EPS result supported by ancillary fees and buybacks, accompanied by weaker U.S. RevPAR, wider international disruption and conservative second-half guidance.

Bull, base and bear scorecard

Scenario	What the report could show
Bull case	Global RevPAR above 2.5%; U.S. strength remains broad; Middle East performs better than the assumed 50% decline; strong World Cup results; full-year RevPAR or EPS guidance raised; card renewal remains on schedule.
Base case	RevPAR near 2%; adjusted EPS and EBITDA within or modestly above guidance; Middle East weakness largely as expected; full-year guidance maintained, perhaps with a higher bias within the range.
Bear case	RevPAR below 1.5%; U.S. select-service demand softens; disruption spreads further into Asia-Pacific or Europe; incentive fees fall sharply; management lowers the RevPAR range or emphasizes second-half deceleration.

Questions that matter on the call

What were global and U.S. RevPAR trends by month in Q2, and what is Marriott seeing in July?
Did Middle East RevPAR decline approximately 50%, and how has booking activity changed since June?
Is the estimated 100–125-basis-point full-year conflict impact still appropriate?
How did World Cup demand compare with the original 30–35-basis-point forecast?
Did select-service momentum continue after April?
How are business-transient room nights trending excluding government demand?
Does Marriott still expect 4.5%–5% net room growth, including 1%–1.5% deletions?
Are the U.S. co-branded card negotiations still expected to conclude during 2026?
How much of Q2 fee growth came from recurring hotel activity versus residential fee timing?
Does management still plan to return more than $4.4 billion to shareholders this year?

Bottom line

Marriott should be capable of delivering high-single-digit EBITDA growth and mid-teens EPS growth despite low-single-digit RevPAR, supported by room additions, credit-card fees, residential branding fees and repurchases. That durability is the core attraction of the model.

However, the stock already prices in a substantial portion of those advantages. The decisive issue on August 3 will be whether underlying lodging demand—particularly in the U.S.—remains strong enough to offset geopolitical pressure and support higher expectations for the rest of 2026.

A clean quarter with stable guidance may be operationally respectable but insufficient for meaningful upside. A positive stock reaction will more likely require either better RevPAR trends, an upward guidance revision, or tangible progress on the co-branded card renewal.

Sources: Marriott’s Q1 2026 earnings release, conference-call transcript and Form 10-Q; Marriott’s July 13 earnings-date announcement; Q2 2025 earnings release for comparisons; market data through July 31, 2026.