Anthony Capuano
President and Chief Executive Officer at Marriott International
Thanks, Jackie, and good morning, everyone. Marriot had excellent results in 2024, reflecting continued robust demand for customers, owners and franchisees for our more than 30 brands. For the full-year, we achieved net rooms growth of 6.8% and global RevPAR rose over 4%. We ended the year-on a high note with fourth -quarter worldwide RevPAR increasing 5%. ADR rose 3% and occupancy increased over one percentage point. All of our regions produced better RevPAR growth than we had previously expected with strength across all of our customer segments.
First, the US and Canada saw its best quarterly RevPAR growth for the year with fourth -quarter RevPAR rising over 4%, primarily driven by a higher ADR. The drop-in occupancy around November's US election was not as severe as we had anticipated, with demand rebounding quickly after the election. International RevPAR rose over 7% in the quarter, driven by 4% rise in ADR and a 2 percentage point gain in occupancy. APAC RevPAR increased 12.5%, led by strong growth in Japan, India and Thailand and aided by strong cross-border demand, especially from Greater China. RevPAR in the EMEA region rose 8% with broad-based growth across the region, led by strong leisure demand.
RevPAR in Greater China declined 2% better than prior expectations as the region benefited from the recent expanded Visa-free transit policy and better-than-anticipated demand across multiple holidays and citywide events. By region, RevPAR growth was positive in Tier-1 cities, Hong-Kong, Macau and Taiwan, while Hainan Island again saw the largest RevPAR decline. Was again impacted by weak domestic leisure demand as wealthier travelers continued to vacation across other parts of the region. However, Hainan did see nice sequential improvement with RevPAR down 16% in the quarter compared to down 24% in Q3.
Turning to trends by customer segment, leisure, which comprises the largest portion of global room nights at 44% had its strongest RevPAR growth quarter of the year and was the fastest-growing of our customer segments. fourth -quarter leisure RevPAR rose 6% globally and 4% in the US and Canada, driven by gains in both room nights and ADR with strength across all tiers from luxury to select-service.
Business transient contributed 33% of global room nights in the fourth -quarter. Solid gains in ADR drove business transient RevPAR up 3% globally and up 4% in the US and Canada. Group RevPAR, which comprised 23% of room nights, rose 3% in the quarter. As expected, this was Group's lowest growth quarter of the year due to fewer group events in the US around November's election and a decline in group RevPAR in Greater China.
Looking at full-year 2024, all customer segments experienced solid RevPAR growth on a global basis. The group increased an impressive -- excuse me, impressive 8% and leisure and business transient rising 3% respectively. As will discuss during her remarks, we are pleased with the solid momentum we have in our business as we start-off 2025. At the end of 2024, global group revenues were pacing up 6% for 2025 and 10% for 2026 on increases in both room nights and average daily rate.
Shifting to development, 2024 was another terrific year. Net rooms grew 6.8%, helped by the addition of around 38,000 rooms from our agreement with MGM and approximately 9,000 rooms from Sander. Conversions were again a large driver of growth in 2024, contributing about a third of our signings and over half of our openings. Our industry-leading global lodging portfolio now boasts over 1.7 million rooms across 144 countries and territories. With a record of over 1,200 deals signed last year, we ended the year with over 577,000 rooms in our pipeline.
In the US and Canada, our largest market, we led the industry in growth room additions with around one-third of all rooms opened during the year flying one of Marriott's flags. While financing in the US remains particularly challenging for new construction, we also had the leading share of new-build construction starts in 2024 as banks have shown preference for deals associated with our strong brands and an experienced player like Merriott.
During the year, we also meaningfully expanded the breadth and depth of our portfolio across customer tiers from luxury to mid-scale and across both traditional and alternative logic lodging product offerings. We continue to have strong owner interest in all of our mid-scale brands, given their compelling brand design, the power of our revenue engines and their simple bundled affiliation costs, which we believe are the lowest in the industry. At the end-of-the year, we had over 300 open and pipeline four points Flex, Studio Res and City Express by Marriott properties just a year and a half after entering the mid-scale tier.
We also continue to expand our incredible luxury portfolio with the opening of several notable hotels, including the St. Regis on the Bond in Shanghai and W's in Prague and Sao Paulo. In the non-traditional lodging space, in December, we announced our plan to launch an outdoor-focused collection, which will be anchored by founding deals with postcard cabins and trail, two innovative outdoor hospitality brands. Ilma, the second luxury super yacht in the Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection, had its maiden voyage in the Mediterranean last September and our third super yacht, Luminara is expected to set sale this summer with itineraries in the Mediterranean, Asia, Alaska and Canada.
Our focus on offering fantastic travel experiences for every trip purpose is key to ensuring that Marriott Bonvoy remains the industry's leading travel platform. We added over 31 million new members to our loyalty program last year, growing to nearly 228 million members at year-end. Bonvoy member penetration of room nights achieved historic highs in the fourth -quarter at 73% in the US and 66% globally. As we grow that member base and our global portfolio and add travel adjacent products and collaborations like our 33 co-brand credit cards and tie-ups with partners like Uber and Starbucks, we are deepening engagement with our members and capturing more of our customers' share of wallet.
Driven by a strong increase in global card spend, our co-brand credit card fees rose nearly 10% last year. Our digital channels and mobile in particular, remain key drivers of direct bookings at a lower-cost to our owners. In 2024, Marriott Bonvoy app downloads rose nearly 30% year-over-year. We're excited about enhancing the customer experience across all our digital channels through the multi-year digital transformation we have underway that we expect to begin rolling out a little later this year.
Before I turn the call over to Leeny to discuss our financial results in more detail, I want to thank our teams around the world for their hard work and dedication and for making Marriott a place where innovation and excellence thrive. Leenie?
