Marriott International (MAR) earnings preview: what to watch in Q3

Marriott International is scheduled to report its third-quarter 2026 results (July 1 – September 30) on Monday, November 2, 2026. The date is confirmed: Marriott announced it on its investor relations site, and it is listed on our earnings calendar. We will publish our analysis once the results are out.

What last quarter showed

Our Q2 2026 analysis found two different pictures depending on which line you read:

• Fees grew fast. Gross fee revenue, the money Marriott earns for putting its brands and management on hotels other people own, rose 12.7% to $1,578 million. Franchise fees rose 19% to $1,023 million, and $73 million of that increase came from higher co-branded credit card fees, more than twice the $30 million that came from new hotel rooms.
• Hotel demand grew slowly. Worldwide RevPAR (revenue per available room: room revenue divided by every room, filled or not) rose 3.4%, all from higher room prices. U.S. & Canada RevPAR rose 5.0%; Middle East & Africa fell 33.1%.
• Reported profit was flat. GAAP net income was $766 million against $763 million a year earlier. Diluted EPS rose 4.3% to $2.90 only because the share count was 3.7% lower after $1.1 billion of buybacks in the quarter. Adjusted EPS, which leaves out a $68 million impairment and a $100 million swing in a pass-through cost line, rose 20% to $3.19.

Q2 beat every range Marriott had guided three months earlier, including adjusted EPS of $3.19 against $2.99–$3.06.

What management guided for Q3

With its Q2 results, Marriott guided third-quarter worldwide RevPAR growth of 3.5%–4.0%, gross fees of $1,474–$1,483 million, adjusted EBITDA of $1,439–$1,468 million and adjusted EPS of $2.74–$2.82. For full-year 2026 it raised RevPAR growth to 3.0%–3.5% (from 2.0%–3.0%), adjusted EPS to $11.64–$11.81 and planned capital returns to over $4.5 billion. That new outlook includes a partial-year benefit from new U.S. credit card agreements with JPMorgan Chase and American Express, which the earlier one did not.

Three things to watch

1. The Middle East and incentive fees. RevPAR in Middle East & Africa fell 33.1% in Q2 (occupancy 50.5%, down 15.8 points), and the 10-Q said the impact was continuing into the third quarter. Incentive management fees, paid when managed hotels clear profit targets, were $212 million in Q2 (+6%), and Marriott says international hotels earn over half of them. Watch whether incentive fees hold up; that is where a longer disruption would show first.

2. Card fees versus room demand. The Q3 fee guidance of $1,474–$1,483 million already counts on the new card deals. The useful question is how much of any fee growth comes from cards ($73 million of Q2's franchise-fee increase) and how much from RevPAR and new rooms. Card fees depend on cardholder spending, not on how full the hotels are, so a quarter that leans heavily on them says less about travel demand.

3. Rooms growth and the balance sheet. Marriott cut its full-year net rooms growth guidance to the low end of 4.5%–5%. New rooms are the slowest but most durable source of fees, so watch whether that range moves again. In the first half, buybacks and dividends (about $2.2 billion) exceeded operating cash flow after capital spending (about $1.5 billion), and total debt rose to $16.9 billion from $16.2 billion. If that pattern continues in Q3, EPS will keep growing faster than profit, funded partly by borrowing.

Also worth checking: whether the gap between GAAP and adjusted EPS stays wide. In Q2 it was $0.29 a share ($2.90 against $3.19), and the cost-reimbursement shortfall behind part of it reached $134 million for the first half, against $9 million a year earlier.