Marriott and Hilton Lead with Affluent Travelers in the Hotel Category

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The bottom line up front  

Among $100K+ households, solo business trips and event-based travel are key purchase triggers, each cited by this segment at nearly double the rate of total adults (14.5% vs. 8.0% for solo business trips; 27.0% vs. 15.0% for events). Extended work stays run at similar intensity (13.3% vs. 7.0%); anniversary and milestone travel at 27.6% vs. 17.0% overall. This segment is a traveler who books hotels intensively across both professional and leisure contexts in the same year. Marriott at and Hilton benefit from that dual-mode volume because their portfolios straddle both contexts. Westin also improves dramatically among higher income travelers compared to all travelers and this improvement is driven by its increased associations with personal milestones (anniversaries, group of friends getting together) as well as professional events.

The $100K+ Competitive Picture

Marriott and Hilton lead on MMS for $100K+ households, and this strength is underpinned by high-income earners traveling for work at elevated rates and accumulating stays within one or two programs, which pulls their mental share upward on both the professional and leisure sides of the ledger. Westin at x2.49 is the most striking over-index among the competitive set, and this dynamic can be seen across a wide range of competitors, all who’s mental availability is stronger among this group including but not limited to Ritz-Carlton (x1.91) and Sheraton (x1.52). At the bottom, Motel 6’s MMS declines dramatically for the $100K+ travelers, which reflects a structural reality: economy brands don't lose the $100K+ traveler through brand failure; they are just not positioned for this segment.

Mental Market Share: $100K+ Households vs. Total Adults

The Occasions That Define $100K+ Travelers

The segment's occasion profile runs two tracks simultaneously. Professional occasions (extended work stays at 13.3% vs. 7.0% of total adults, solo business trips at 14.5% vs. 8.0%, conferences at 17.1% vs. 9.7%) reflect the structural reality that high-income households skew toward jobs that require travel. Celebratory occasions run alongside them, not in sequence: anniversary and milestone travel at 27.6% vs. 17.0% of total adults, weddings and graduations at 28.0% vs. 19.7%. What this reveals about the segment isn't simply that they travel more; it's that every trip is purposeful, and both modes are active at high rates across the same calendar year. A brand that captures the Tuesday business trip and the anniversary dinner or weekend is the brand primed for growth.

The concerts, sporting events, and festival occasion is the most strategically significant data point in this table. At 27.0% among $100K+ adults (vs. 15.0% overall), it matches solo business trips in salience, and no brand owns it. Hyatt Place's +5.4 Mental Advantage score is a relative strength for the brand, but it’s still open territory for hotel and lodging brands to go after. That's different from the anniversary occasion, where Ritz-Carlton's +24.4 and Four Seasons' +14.5 reflect years of deliberate positioning that competitors can't close quickly. The concert/event occasion is still open for the taking.

Top Over-Indexed Category Entry Points: $100K+ Households vs. Total Adults

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The Conversion Story

When we compare usage with mental market share, an interesting pattern emerges; traditional hotel brands are not being chosen as much as we might expect based on mental market share alone. The $100K+ travelers are clearly savvy, and they are more likely to opt out of traveling in general due to nightly rates being too high compared to the general consumer. Airbnb is benefiting the most from this, taking advantage of extended stays, relocation as well as group outings to pull share from traditional brands that they would have otherwise expected.

The Strategic Brief

Westin's x2.49 over-index on MMS among the $100K+ income traveler is particularly striking. There are lessons here for all hotel and lodging brands targeting this group. Westin's brand appeal grows among the $100K traveler because they are benefiting from strong brand associations on category entry points that are more important to this traveler than the general consumer - starting with personal milestones and social / fun events. For example, the concert, sporting event, and festival occasion runs at 27.0% among $100K+ adults, nearly double the total adult rate. Hyatt Place also performs well on this occasion, and hotel and lodging brands that target the $100K+ traveler’s desires for both business and personal will be the ones positioned best to capitalize on the needs of the segment.

And Airbnb's -1.1pp conversion gap among $100K+ households is a product signal. These travelers are routing to Airbnb when they need three bedrooms, a kitchen, or a specific location that a standard hotel room doesn't answer. Hotel brands positioned to recover some of those occasions are the ones with extended-stay or suite-format products: Residence Inn, Embassy Suites, Hyatt House. Each already has associations with functional flexibility; the play is making that functional case explicitly to high-income travelers who are currently defaulting to Airbnb for trips that a well-positioned suite product could serve.

About this research

Morning Consult conducts over 30,000 daily proprietary surveys in 45 countries covering more than 5,000 brands and 50 economic indicators. 

Our category advantage research is aimed at understanding the needs driving consumers in your category — and how your brand can own more of them. This research is built on validated principles of brand-driven growth and powered by Morning Consult’s industry-leading sampling technology.

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