Hilton made a loss of $720 million during 2020, including a $225 million loss for the fourth quarter.
The figures compare with net income of $886 million for the full-year 2019 and an $81 million loss for the third quarter of 2020, when the hotel giant said it had seen some improvement.
The company reported adjusted EBITDA of $204 million for the quarter and $842 million for the full year.
Despite the ongoing impact of the pandemic, the company says it now has 97% of its hotels open.
Chris Nassetta, president and CEO of the global chain, says: “Our fourth quarter results were largely in line with our expectations as rising COVID-19 cases and tightening travel restrictions disrupted the positive momentum we saw throughout the summer and fall.
“Yet even with a challenging environment, we celebrated our one million room milestone during the quarter and achieved net unit growth of more than five percent for the year.”
The company says it has a development pipeline of almost 2,570 hotels across 116 countries and territories, 31 of which Hilton says it currently does not have any hotels in the portfolio.
Occupancy for Q4 was 41% in the U.S., a drop of more than 30 percentage points year-on-year.
In Europe, occupancy for the quarter was 28%, a drop of more than 53 percentage points year-on-year.
