Marriott International has said that it expects its cash burn for the year to be slower than previous estimated as bookings slowly recover from the coronavirus lows that pushed the hotel chain to post its first quarterly loss in nearly nine years.
The world's largest hotel chain said that it is seeing a steady recovery in occupancy rates across the world with economies reopening gradually, although it may take a few years for them to return to pre-COVID levels.
Marriott CEO Arne Sorenson said, "Leisure [demand] may continue to be a significant source of recovery past Labor Day and into the fall...but we would expect corporate to be slower."
Marriott said that Greater China is leading the global recovery and that the market could approach 2019 occupancy levels as early as next year.
Global Occupancy, Cash Burn, Loss Per Share And Total Revenue
Overall, the company's global occupancy rates improved to 34% during the week that ended on August 1 from 11% in April.
Marriott now expects a cash burn of $85 million a month in 2020, which is down from a prior expectation of $145 million.
On an adjusted basis, Marriott reported a loss of 64 cents per share in the second quarter ended June 30, which was bigger than analysts' expectation of a loss of 42 cents per share.
Total revenue plunged 72.4% to $1.46 billion.
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