Hilton reports strong finish in 2022 and positive outlook for 2023

Hilton Worldwide Holdings announced during an earnings call that the fourth-quarter and full-year results were positive and gave the company momentum heading into 2023.

Hilton officials revealed that net income was $333 million for the fourth quarter and $1.25 billion for the full year, with adjusted EBITDA of $740 million for the fourth quarter and $2.59 billion for 2022. The totals exceeded the high end of guidance.

System-wide comparable RevPAR increased 24.8 percent and 42.5 percent for the fourth quarter and full year, respectively, compared to the same periods in 2021. Compared to 2019, RevPAR improved by 7.5 percent in the fourth quarter and decreased by 1.3 percent overall.

The hotel giant approved 24,400 new rooms for development during the fourth quarter, bringing the company’s development pipeline to 416,400 rooms as of December 31.

Despite issues associated with China’s COVID-related restrictions, Hilton reported net unit growth of 4.7 percent due to 48,300 net additional rooms in the system for the full year.

“They probably for the first time in quite a while missed on unit growth blaming on China so that obviously one of the reasons that their unit growth has been a bit softer,” Bernstein analyst Richard Clarke told Reuters.

Looking ahead, Hilton officials predicted that full-year net unit growth from 2023 will reach between 5 and 5.5 percent. Capital returns are projected to be between $1.7 billion and $2.1 billion, compared with $1.7 billion last year.