Investing.com -- Marriott International (O:MAR) shares fell by nearly 3% in after-hours trading, after the hotel chain reported mixed results on Wednesday afternoon with its fourth quarter earnings.
For Marriott's fourth quarter, the company reported earnings of $202 million or 0.77 per share, up from net profits of $197 million or 0.68 over the same quarter a year earlier. Marriott narrowly topped analysts' forecasts for per share earnings of 0.76 on the period. Marriott's revenues, meanwhile, rose to $3.7 billion for the quarter, up 3.3% on an annual basis. Analysts expected the company to finish with revenues of $3.72 billion for the period.
RevPar, Marriott's system for tracking company sales, also increased by 4% on a comparable hotel basis when measured in dollar-denominated terms.
"We are encouraged by recent demand trends," Marriott CEO Arne Sorneson said in a statement. "Group RevPAR in North America increased 6% in the quarter and new group bookings for future business increased 10 percent year-over-year."
"Group booking pace for the company's full-service hotels is up 7% in 2016 compared to 2015. Based on negotiations completed to date, we expect special corporate rates across our North American hotels will increase at a mid-single digit rate in 2016."
Overall, Marriott increased its average daily room rate by 4% in 2015, while its occupancy rate reached a record-high of 74%. For the year as a whole, Marriott added nearly 52,000 rooms boosting its overall total 759,000, the company said.
In November, Marriott announced a $12.2 billion acquisition of Starwood Hotels & Resorts in a deal which is expected to create the largest hotel chain in the world. If the deal receives regulatory approval, the new chain will own 5,500 hotels totaling 1.1 million rooms worldwide.
Moving forward, Marriott expects to achieve an 8% spike in worldwide gross room growth in 2016, along with an increase in comparable RevPAR by 3-5% on a constant dollar basis.
Shares in Marriott fell 1.93 or 2.89% to 64.75 in after-hours trading.