A is when Wachovia and Zacks upgraded the stock today
Unlike Goldman’s downgrade of Starwood stock a few short days ago, both Wachovia and Zacks have rather nice things to say about HOT. Zacks considers the company’s significant exposure to international markets and concentration in higher-end hotels to be a positive attributes that should help Starwood to weather the economic downturn in the U.S.
It’s no secret that Starwood is focusing on the upper-end markets. We saw in yesterday’s post the new branding campaign for the Luxury Collection properties (and most of which are overseas).
Here’s an interesting set of statistics:
Starwood has a pipeline of 500 hotels with approximately 120,000 rooms. This pipeline represents growth of more than 40 percent over the company’s current system-wide total, the largest such percentage in the industry. Importantly, approximately 70 percent of the rooms in the pipeline are in the upper upscale or luxury segments, and more than 50 percent of the rooms are located outside the United States.
According to Zacks, “Starwood has the best brands in the industry, in our opinion, and given its focus on the premium segments of the market, we consider the company to be well-positioned going forward.”
Unlike the airlines, it doesn’t seem like we need to be worried about losing our Starpoints any time soon!
Source: Zacks
