Anthony Capuano
Chief Executive Officer at Marriott International
Thanks, Jackie. We're very pleased with the remarkable progress we made in 2021 across the entire global portfolio, despite the ongoing challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. We finished the year on a real high note with the emergence of Omicron having a limited impact on results in the fourth quarter.
In December, global ADR was 3% above 2019 levels, and occupancy for the month gained further ground compared to December of 2019, driving global RevPAR to an 11% decline versus 2019. This was a 53-percentage point improvement from the RevPAR decline in January of 2021. In the fourth quarter, global RevPAR was 19% lower than pre-pandemic levels. Global occupancy for the quarter came in at 58%, 12 percentage points below 2019, while ADR was only 2% shy of 2019 levels. In the U.S. and Canada, fourth quarter RevPAR declined 15% compared to 2019.
Results were driven by strong ADR, which was less than 2% below pre-pandemic levels. Further strengthening of already robust leisure travel and steady improvement in the recovery of business transient and group demand also helped results. Fourth quarter group room revenue in the U.S. and Canada was down 32% versus 2019, a 9%-point improvement from the third quarter decline. With booking windows still much shorter than usual, in the quarter for the quarter bookings were up 45% versus the fourth quarter of 2019.
Group cancellations ticked up late last year and early this year due to Omicron, mostly for arrival dates in January and February, but those cancellations have slowed more recently. New group bookings have also been gaining momentum, especially in the year for the year. In fact, just last week, Salesforce held a large company meeting in New York City that was booked just one month before the event. It was the largest internal meeting Salesforce has held since the start of the pandemic with over 25,000 room nights across 11 of our properties.
While special corporate demand in the U.S. and Canada was still well below '19 levels, there was gradual improvement in the fourth quarter. Relative to pre-pandemic levels, bookings in the quarter were down 33%, 11 percentage points better than the decline in the bookings in the third quarter. Weekly bookings around the end of last year were impacted by Omicron, but they have recovered since the trough in early January.
All of our international regions, except for Greater China, posted sequential RevPAR recovery from the third to the fourth quarter as more borders reopened and travel restrictions eased. Greater China's fourth quarter 27% RevPAR decline compared to 2019 was in line with the decline in the third quarter as their zero COVID policy once again resulted in the lockdown of several cities.
The Middle East and Africa or MEA region performed particularly well in the fourth quarter, really demonstrating the resilience of travel demand. With relatively high vaccination rates and low travel restrictions during the quarter, the Middle East has become a safe, easy place to visit. Led by strength in the UAE, fourth quarter RevPAR in MEA rose 8% in 2019, driven by 20% higher ADR -- excuse me, 8% above '19, driven by 20% higher ADR. Fourth quarter occupancy in MEA topped 65%, the highest of our regions.
Leisure demand was remarkably strong, benefiting from a significant increase in international visitors. Room nights from international guests rose nearly 60% from the third to the fourth quarter.
Throughout the pandemic, strengthening our valuable loyalty platform and engaging with our Marriott Bonvoy members have been key areas of focus. In the fourth quarter of '21, 52% of room nights globally and 58% of room nights in the U.S. and Canada were booked by Bonvoy members. And global membership grew to over 160 million members at year-end, driven by strong digital sign-ups.
Turning to development. Both room additions and signings were strong in '21 despite ongoing challenges associated with the pandemic. Despite industry-wide preconstruction and construction delays, some labor shortages and supply chain issues, we added a record 86,000 gross rooms and 517 properties, leading to 6.1% gross rooms growth for the year. Our global net rooms growth was 3.9%, above our previous expectation, given deletions were towards the low end of those expectations. Our deletion rate for 2021 was 2.1% or 1.2%, excluding the exit of 88 Service Properties Trust hotels.
We are also pleased that we continue to grow our share of rooms globally. In 2021, around 15% of all global new build rooms opened under our brands compared to our year-end room share of 7%. This share is expected to continue as we had 18% of all global rooms under construction at the end of '21, more than twice our current share of open rooms. Our development team signed franchise and management agreements for approximately 92,000 rooms during 2021, and our year-end global pipeline totaled roughly 485,000 rooms. The composition of our pipeline dovetails nicely with current demand trends.
Leisure demand has led to recovery, and we are well positioned to continue growing our lead in resort destinations, including in the high-growth, all-inclusive space. We've also been seeing strong preference for our luxury properties. With luxury rooms accounting for more than 10% of our pipeline, we are poised to further expand our industry-leading portfolio in this valuable high-fee segment.
Conversions were a significant growth driver in 2021, accounting for 21% of room additions and 27% of signings. With the breadth of our roster of conversion-friendly brands across chain scales and the meaningful top and bottom line benefits associated with being part of our system, we anticipate that conversions will remain an important contributor to growth over the next several years.
For 2022, we expect gross rooms growth to approach 5% and deletions of 1% to 1.5%, leading to anticipated net rooms growth of 3.5% to 4%. While signing activity has been picking up nicely, 2022 gross room additions are expected to be impacted by the diminished construction starts the industry has experienced throughout the pandemic, particularly here in the U.S.
As a reminder, average construction time lines are currently around two years for limited service deals and often longer for full service deals. Yet given the improving global environment, the attractiveness of our brands, our strong development activity, our conversion momentum and our industry-leading pipeline, we are confident that over the next several years, we will return to our pre-pandemic mid-single-digit net rooms growth rate.
Before I turn the call over to Leeny, I did want to share a few highlights of the company's ESG efforts over the course of the year. The Board of Directors and our management team are keenly focused on these important areas, as we're committed to making a positive and sustainable impact in the communities where we live and work. In June, as part of our diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, we announced we were setting new internal diversity goals for our group of Vice Presidents and above. The new targets aim to achieve global gender parity by 2023, an acceleration of our prior timetable, and to increase representation of people of color in the U.S. to 25% by 2025. In July, we updated our human trafficking awareness training, which will be made widely available to the entire industry. More than 900,000 associates have now taken training in this area. And in September, we pledged to set science-based emissions reduction targets in line with the 1.5-degree Celsius emissions scenarios.
As I finish my first year as CEO, I want to again thank our incredible associates for all their hard work through these challenging times. I've spent most of the last few months on the road, traveling across the U.S. from New York to Los Angeles and also abroad, and have seen firsthand their dedication to serving our guests. I'm so proud of all we've accomplished over the last year and continue to be very optimistic about our outlook for 2022 and beyond. Leeny?
