Anthony Capuano, Marriott International CEO

Marriott International is set to expand its footprint in Latin America and the Caribbean via an agreed-upon $100 million acquisition of Hoteles City Express. The deal not only will add the 31^st brand to the company’s portfolio, it also will make Marriott International the largest hotel company in Latin America and the Caribbean. The agreement, which includes more than 17,000 guest rooms in 152 hotels and 75 cities across Mexico, Chile, Columbia and Costa Rica, is expected to close in the first half of 2023 pending regulatory approval.  

The move marks Marriott’s entry into the “popular affordable midscale segment,” to put it in the words of Marriott International CEO Anthony Capuano, who spearheaded the acquisition. It’s a market that has done extremely well in the business travel space in the United States, particularly since essential business travel like infrastructure teams, engineers and client service groups recovered travel faster than white-collar executives. That said, the City Express portfolio offers several brand extensions, including City Express, City Express Plus, City Express Suites, City Express Junio and City Centro that play squarely in the business travel segment. The transaction will increase Marriott’s presence in the region by 45 percent.

The Hoteles City Express agreement wasn’t the only move by Capuano to make headlines in the business travel sector this year. The company often has been bold about getting in front of the request-for-proposals season, when it comes to rate increase predictions. Capuano spoke openly about significant rate increases for corporate clients in 2023.

As early as August, he estimated in the company’s second-quarter earnings call that corporate rate percent increases would hit the “high single digits.” It was the first shot across the bow for corporate buyers and seemed to set expectations for the upcoming negotiation season, which by many accounts was a delayed process this year as corporates got what program data they had in order for a year in which hotels would no longer extend previous deals—and, in fact, would look to recoup pandemic losses.

In a BTN survey of business travel buyers fielded 6 weeks after Capuano’s initial corporate rate musings, 87 percent of buyers expected rate increases for 2023. More than 45 percent expected rate increases between 5 percent and 10 percent.