Christopher J. Nassetta
President and Chief Executive Officer at Hilton Worldwide
Thank you, Jill. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us today. We're happy to report a great end to another strong year, marked by record unit growth and several important milestones. We added new brands and strategic partnerships to meet guests' needs. We opened more rooms than in any other year in our history and we signed a record number of new rooms to our development pipeline, all of which further strengthened our network and positioned Hilton for continued growth in 2025 and beyond.
Thanks to our incredible team members and owners, we also welcome more than 224 million guests to our properties more than any year in our history.
For the full-year, system-wide RevPAR increased 2.7% compared to 2023 with growth across all segments and all major regions. Solid top-line performance, coupled with strong net unit growth drove record adjusted EBITDA of more than $3.4 billion, up 11% year-over-year, demonstrating the strength of our fee-based business model and the power of our growth algorithm.Significant free-cash flow generation enabled us to return $3 billion to shareholders.
Turning to results for the quarter, system-wide RevPAR increased 3.5% year-over-year, above the high-end of our guidance range, driven by better-than-expected trends in leisure and continued growth in Business Transient and group.
Leisure transient RevPAR increased 4%, driven by solid growth in both occupancy and rate with particularly strong trends throughout December. In the quarter, leisure occupancy remained five points higher than pre-pandemic levels. Business transient RevPAR increased more than 3%, led by continued recovery in large corporates with big tech and big banks meaningfully outperforming.
Group RevPAR rose 3% year-over-year as demand for company meetings and social events remained strong. Additionally, booking EOF Windows continued to lengthen and strong demand in conventions and company meetings drove higher rates for future periods. As we look to the year ahead, we feel incrementally a bit better than we did a quarter ago and expect system-wide top-line growth of 2% to 3% for 2025. We expect relatively steady growth across the Americas, modest deceleration in EMEA due to -- due to tough comparisons following a robust year last year and growth across Asia-Pacific given improvements in China and continued strength throughout the rest of the region. We also expect positive RevPAR growth across all major segments with group outperforming driven by continued strength in company meetings and convention business. We assume very modest RevPAR growth in leisure transient given forecast for steady levels of consumer spending and challenging comparisons. We expect continued recovery in business transient, driven by further momentum in large corporates, coupled with steady demand across small and medium-sized businesses. Turning to development, we opened 171 hotels in the 4th-quarter, totaling nearly 23,000 rooms as our strategic and diversified approach to development continued to drive brand expansion into new markets around the world. During the quarter, we opened our first Tapestry hotels in Paraguay, Bon Air and Australia, helping the conversion-friendly lifestyle brand to surpass 150 hotels in 20 countries and territories worldwide. We also debuted our Curio brand in Romania and opened our first Hampton in Africa, in Colombia, Hilton Garden in Greece and Spark in Austria. In Asia-Pacific, we celebrated the opening of our 100th hotel ahead of schedule and representing growth of more than 30% versus last year. For the full-year, we added a record 973 hotels, representing nearly 100,000 rooms and the single biggest increase in rooms in Hilton's more than 100-year history, driving net unit growth of 7.3%. Conversions accounted for roughly 45% of room openings in the year, driven by the addition of SLH properties and continued momentum from Spark, DoubleTree and our conversion-friendly lifestyle brands. Overall, luxury-lifestyle hotels accounted for roughly half of our system-wide openings in the year, bringing those portfolio -- bringing those portfolios to more than 900 hotels across the world. Additionally, our luxury and lifestyle pipeline mix is nearly two times our existing supply, supporting continued growth in these important segments. Even with record openings, our system-wide pipeline grew 8% year-over-year to total approximately 500,000 rooms at year end. We signed 154,000 rooms in the year, up 18% and representing our biggest year of signings to date. We also ended the year with several notable signings, including the Walterf Astoria Bahrain, Walterf Astoria, Almedina and Saudi Arabia, Conrad and Los Cabos in our first motto in China and agreements to debut LXR Curio in Hampton in Morocco. Construction starts for the year remained strong, the highest in our history, increasing 10% year-over-year, excluding acquisitions and partnerships with meaningful growth across all regions. We finished the year with nearly a quarter million rooms under-construction, which is more than any other hotel company. This represents more than 20% of industry share of rooms under-construction and nearly four times our existing share of supply. With nearly half of our pipeline under-construction and continued growth in conversion opportunities, we feel confident in our ability to deliver strong net unit growth of 6% to 7% in 2025, defined by our continued focus on geographic and chain scale diversity, we have exciting development opportunities ahead. Studios is slated to open its first locations this summer. Following the recent opening of Spark's 100th hotel, the brand has several international market debuts, including India and the Kala region scheduled for this year. We expect our newly announced strategic licensing agreement with Olive by Embassy to accelerate Sparks expansion in India, representing an exciting opportunity to tap into the country's growing middle-class. We also expect continued momentum in luxury with several noteworthy openings in 2025, including the iconic Walter Vistoria in New York, following an extensive and thoughtfully designed renovation, the 375-room hotel will usher in a new era of luxury for New York City. This year, we will also welcome Walter Pistoria properties in Costa Rica, Shanghai, Osaka and Morocco in addition to Conrad Hotels in Athens and Hamburg. Cignia celebrated an important milestone just last week with the opening of the brand's first hotel outside the US located in Aman Jordan, the property offers another sought-after location for business and leisure travelers. Demonstrating our continued commitment to meeting the evolving preferences of our guests. We recently-announced several new wellness renovations. In January, we expanded our partnership with Peloton to provide guests with complementary access to a collection of Peloton's on-demand fitness content on our in-room TVs. We also recently partnered with COM, a leading wellness company to offer guests access to guided meditation, sleep stories, calming soundscapes and mindfulness exercises directly from their in-room TVs. Thanks to our incredible team members around the world, we continue to be recognized for our culture. During the 4th-quarter, we celebrated our eighth consecutive year as the top hospitality company on the World's Best Workplace list by great place to Work. Our brands also continue to receive recognition, most recently by Entrepreneur Magazine's Franchise 500 for the 16th consecutive year, Hampton took the number-one spot in the lodging category, thanks to its strong preference, global growth and guest loyalty. In total, 12 of our brands receive recognition underscoring the value they drive for owners and guests and our leadership in franchising and innovation across the hospitality sector. Overall, we're very pleased with our performance and proud of the record growth we delivered last year, our powerful network of brands continues to be an engine of opportunity for all of our stakeholders. Given our strong momentum, robust pipeline and resilient fee-based business model, we're confident that we are well-positioned to continue driving strong performance in 2025 and beyond. Now I'll turn the call over to Kevin to give you a little bit more details on the quarter and our expectations for the year.
