Four in ten hotel rooms in Europe now carry a chain's name. The chains want the next ones without building them.
Chains held 41% of Europe's 6.5 million hotel rooms in August, up from 36% in 2020, according to CoStar, and the fastest way to the next point is an independent that keeps its name
by Markus Busch
Driving the news. Of the 6.5 million hotel rooms in Europe, more than 41% belonged to a chain brand in August, according to CoStar data reported by the Financial Times on [FT DATE]. In 2020 the share was 36%. In the Americas and in Asia-Pacific, about two rooms in three already carry a brand. Europe is the one big region where most rooms still have no chain behind them.
A third of Marriott's signings were already open. Building a hotel takes years and a lender willing to wait. Signing one that already has guests is faster and cheaper. In the first half of 2026, hotels changing their sign made up more than a third of Marriott's signings and 40% of its openings, according to its second-quarter results, which we have covered before. The other groups have built brands for exactly that hotel. Hilton launched Outset Collection in 2025. IHG launched Noted Collection in February and is rolling it out in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Africa first, the region where IHG says the most hotels still fly no flag. Its chief executive told the FT that owners in Rome, Florence and Milan now call IHG themselves, which they did not do five years ago. A lawyer who works on these deals described both brands as a way to "plug their beds into the brand's distribution" without a costly rebuild.
23.3 million American trips to Europe. The pitch leans on one guest in particular. Americans made 23.3 million trips to Europe in 2025, more than a million up on the year before, according to the US National Travel and Tourism Office, and they are more likely than Europeans to book inside a loyalty program. The operator of a boutique hotel in Crete that joined Hilton's Tapestry Collection told the FT the flag brought it a more international guest. Business travelers pull the same way. A Bernstein analyst told the FT they are a brand's best customers: they look for a name they know, they come back, and they spend at the bar and in the restaurant.
The catch. The 41% counts rooms, not hotels. Chain hotels are bigger, so their share of hotels is far smaller: in Germany, chains held about 40% of rooms in 2022 and 11.6% of hotels, according to Horwath HTL. The figure also lumps new chain hotels together with independents that changed their sign, so it cannot say how much of the five points came from conversions. And CoStar sells this data. The number reached the public through the FT, without a CoStar release behind it.
What it means for hotels. For most independents in Europe, the change shows up across the street. The hotel chasing the same weekend guest may have kept its name, its façade and its restaurant, and added a reservation system, a sales team calling on companies, and a place in the chain's app in front of its loyalty members. Your rate now competes with that. If the same offer lands on your desk, our series Before you sign goes through it one question at a time: what the brand delivers, what leaving costs, what a points night pays, and who sets your rate.
Read also: The chains' growth now comes from hotels that are already open. Yours is on the list.
Enjoying this analysis? Hospitality.today delivers daily insights on hotel distribution, AI trends, and travel commerce — straight to your inbox. Subscribe for free at Hospitality.today →