Last Updated on July 27, 2026 by Daniel Globe
Sheraton is owned by Marriott International, which gained the hotel brand when it completed its acquisition of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide in September 2016. Sheraton’s roots reach back to the 1930s, but its official brand history begins in 1937. Since then, ownership has passed from its founders to ITT, Starwood, and finally Marriott.
Quick Answer
Sheraton is owned by Marriott International. Marriott acquired the brand in September 2016 when it completed its purchase of Starwood Hotels & Resorts. Marriott owns and controls the Sheraton brand, but many individual Sheraton hotel buildings are owned by separate investors and operated under franchise or management agreements.
Who Owns Sheraton Today?
Sheraton is owned by Marriott International today. Marriott completed its acquisition of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide on September 23, 2016, bringing Sheraton, Westin, W Hotels, St. Regis, and other Starwood brands into the Marriott portfolio.
The amended 2016 merger agreement valued Starwood at approximately $13.6 billion, excluding the separate value tied to the Interval Leisure Group transaction. The completed combination created what was then the world’s largest hotel company.
Marriott has grown substantially since then. According to its first-quarter 2026 reporting, the company’s worldwide system had more than 9,900 properties in 146 countries and territories as of March 31, 2026.
For Sheraton specifically, Marriott’s 2025 annual report lists 436 properties and 147,958 rooms as of December 31, 2025. Marriott currently places Sheraton in its Premium brand category.
Note: Marriott owns the Sheraton brand, but that does not mean Marriott owns every Sheraton building. Marriott says it owns or leases less than 1% of the lodging properties in its overall system. Most hotels operate through franchise, management, or licensing arrangements with third-party property owners.
Sheraton Ownership Timeline
| Year | Ownership milestone |
| 1937 | Sheraton’s official history begins with founders Ernest Henderson and Robert Moore. |
| 1968 | ITT Corporation acquires Sheraton. |
| 1998 | Starwood Hotels & Resorts acquires ITT Corporation, bringing Sheraton into Starwood. |
| 2016 | Marriott International acquires Starwood and becomes Sheraton’s parent company. |
| Today | Sheraton operates as a Marriott Premium brand and participates in Marriott Bonvoy. |
For travelers, Marriott ownership mainly means Sheraton shares Marriott’s reservation and distribution systems, participates in Marriott Bonvoy, and follows brand standards that Marriott applies through its franchise and management network.
Sheraton’s Founding History
Sheraton’s roots reach into the early 1930s. Historical hospitality research traces Ernest Henderson and Robert Moore’s hotel investments to that period, including a Cambridge, Massachusetts property. Sheraton itself uses 1937 as the beginning of its official brand timeline, when Henderson and Moore acquired a hotel in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Note: The Sheraton name came slightly later. Historical accounts describe Henderson and his partners acquiring a Boston property with a prominent rooftop “Sheraton” sign. Replacing the sign would have been expensive, so the name was retained and eventually used across the growing hotel business.
The founders expanded mainly by buying existing hotels rather than building every property from the ground up. That approach allowed the company to grow more quickly and improve hotels that already had rooms, staff, and established locations.
Among the properties associated with Sheraton’s early expansion was Boston’s Copley Plaza. The company continued adding hotels across the eastern United States and eventually moved beyond the domestic market.
Sheraton grew rapidly by acquiring existing hotels, improving operations, and building a recognizable brand across multiple markets.
That acquisition-focused model laid the groundwork for Sheraton’s later national and international growth.
How Sheraton Went Public
By the mid-1940s, the expanding hotel business had developed into the Sheraton Corporation of America. In 1947, Sheraton reached one of the most important milestones in hotel-industry history: it became the first hotel chain listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
Going public gave the company broader access to capital markets at a time when it was expanding its hotel network. It also made Sheraton a more visible corporate name beyond the individual cities where its hotels operated.
NYSE Listing Milestone
Sheraton’s 1947 NYSE listing mattered because hotel chains were still developing into national corporate systems. A public listing gave investors a way to own shares in a growing hotel company and gave Sheraton another source of capital for expansion.
The milestone also helped establish Sheraton as more than a collection of individual hotels. It was becoming a recognizable national company with centralized management and an increasingly standardized brand.
1947 Public Debut
The public debut marked the transition from a privately controlled expansion strategy to a company with publicly traded shares and greater capital-market visibility.
| Metric | Effect | Why It Mattered |
| NYSE listing | Broader access to equity capital | Supported continued expansion |
| Public shares | Opened ownership to public investors | Expanded the company’s financing options |
| Market visibility | Raised Sheraton’s corporate profile | Created an industry precedent |
The important takeaway is not simply that Sheraton sold stock. Its listing showed that a hotel chain could scale as a publicly traded corporation rather than remain a collection of privately financed properties.
Market Expansion Benefits
Sheraton continued expanding after its NYSE listing and also invested in systems that could support a larger hotel network. In 1958, it introduced Reservatron, which Sheraton describes as the hotel industry’s first automatic electronic reservation system.
The company then accelerated its international expansion. Sheraton’s official timeline says it opened its first hotels in the Middle East and South America during the 1960s and reached its 100th hotel in 1965.
Sheraton’s International Expansion
Sheraton became an international hotel name decades before joining Marriott. Its official history records expansion into the Middle East and South America during the 1960s and a major breakthrough in Asia in the 1980s.
In 1985, Sheraton became the first international hotel chain to operate a hotel in the People’s Republic of China. That milestone made China an important part of the brand’s long-term international identity.
In 2013, Sheraton Shantou opened in China as the brand’s 100th hotel in Asia Pacific. This is an important correction to older summaries that mistakenly date the milestone to 2023.
Early Global Markets
Sheraton’s international strategy centered on establishing hotels in important business and travel markets instead of remaining a U.S.-only chain. Its official history places the first Middle Eastern and South American expansion in the 1960s.
That early international presence helped create the broad geographic footprint Sheraton later carried through the ITT, Starwood, and Marriott eras.
Middle East And Asia
The Middle East and Asia became especially important parts of Sheraton’s worldwide expansion.
| Year | Milestone | Significance |
| 1960s | First hotels in the Middle East and South America | Expanded Sheraton beyond North America |
| 1985 | Entered the People’s Republic of China | First international hotel chain to operate there |
| 2013 | Sheraton Shantou opened | 100th Sheraton hotel in Asia Pacific |
China remains one of Sheraton’s largest regional markets. Marriott’s 2025 annual report counted 103 Sheraton properties in Greater China at year-end.
Marriott Era Growth
After Marriott acquired Starwood in 2016, Sheraton gained access to Marriott’s larger reservation, loyalty, distribution, and development network. The brand continued operating internationally while Marriott also began a substantial effort to renovate and reposition older properties.
- Sheraton remained one of Marriott’s most internationally distributed brands.
- Marriott Bonvoy connected Sheraton stays to Marriott’s wider loyalty platform.
- Renovations emphasized open public areas, workspaces, gathering areas, and updated guest rooms.
- Development continued through Marriott’s largely franchise- and management-based business model.
The Marriott era is therefore both an ownership change and an operating change: Sheraton became part of a much larger hotel platform while retaining its own brand name and identity.
ITT Sheraton and the Franchising Shift
ITT Corporation acquired Sheraton in 1968. During the ITT era, Sheraton increasingly relied on franchising and management agreements rather than requiring the parent company to own every hotel property directly.
This model allowed Sheraton to expand with third-party real-estate owners while the brand supplied its name, operating systems, reservation network, and standards. It is an early version of the asset-light structure now common among major global hotel companies.
ITT Sheraton also continued developing different hotel concepts for different travelers. The Sheraton Towers concept emerged around 1970 with a stronger focus on premium service within major Sheraton properties.
In 1995, the company introduced Four Points by Sheraton, creating a more moderately priced brand that could expand separately from the main Sheraton name.
The larger lesson from the ITT period is that Sheraton’s growth increasingly depended on controlling a hotel brand and operating system rather than owning all of the underlying real estate.
Starwood’s Rebrand of Sheraton
Sheraton changed corporate parents again in 1998, when Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide acquired ITT Corporation. SEC records describe ITT as being acquired by Starwood on February 23, 1998, with Sheraton then becoming one of Starwood’s principal hotel brands.
This distinction matters: Starwood did not simply buy the Sheraton brand by itself for $13.3 billion. It acquired ITT Corporation, Sheraton’s parent company, as part of the larger transaction.
Under Starwood, Sheraton remained a major global hotel flag while undergoing periodic upgrades in rooms, public areas, technology, and brand positioning.
- Properties received renovations intended to improve consistency and modernize rooms and public spaces.
- The Sheraton Grand designation, introduced in 2015, identified select hotels positioned at the upper end of the Sheraton portfolio.
- Lobby and shared-space concepts became a larger part of the brand experience.
- Technology and service updates aimed to make the brand more consistent across markets.
Starwood’s stewardship helped move Sheraton toward the design and guest-experience model that Marriott later expanded through its own transformation program.
How Marriott Took Over Sheraton
Marriott’s path to Sheraton came through its acquisition of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide. During the deal process, Marriott competed with a consortium led by China’s Anbang Insurance Group before Starwood ultimately proceeded with the Marriott transaction.
An amended merger agreement announced in March 2016 valued Starwood at approximately $13.6 billion, excluding the separate consideration connected with the Interval Leisure Group transaction. Marriott completed the Starwood acquisition on September 23, 2016.
At completion, the combined company had more than 5,700 properties, approximately 1.1 million rooms, and 30 hotel brands in more than 110 countries. Sheraton joined Marriott alongside Starwood brands such as Westin, W Hotels, St. Regis, The Luxury Collection, and Four Points.
| Factor | Impact |
| Portfolio scale | Expanded Marriott’s global hotel and room count |
| Brand access | Added Sheraton and other Starwood brands to Marriott |
| Loyalty and distribution | Eventually connected Sheraton to Marriott’s unified Bonvoy platform |
| Competitive position | Created the world’s largest hotel company at the time |
Sheraton therefore changed corporate parents twice in less than two decades: from ITT to Starwood in 1998, then from Starwood to Marriott in 2016.
How Marriott Is Refreshing Sheraton
Marriott made Sheraton’s revitalization a priority after completing the Starwood merger. In 2018, Marriott publicly outlined a major Sheraton transformation centered on redesigned public spaces, updated guest rooms, new operating concepts, and stronger collaboration with individual hotel owners.
At that point, Sheraton owners in the United States had already committed an estimated $500 million to renovations, according to Marriott.
In 2019, Sheraton introduced a redesigned logo. Marriott described the new identity as a modernized look intended to signal the brand’s broader transformation and its renewed focus on being a gathering place for guests and local communities.
Sheraton’s transformation has focused on modern public spaces, renovated rooms, and a stronger emphasis on hotels as places to meet, work, and gather.
- Updated visual identity and signage
- Redesigned lobbies and shared work-and-social spaces
- Renovated guest rooms at participating properties
- Continued owner investment in older Sheraton hotels
The transformation has continued property by property rather than happening everywhere at once. In 2025, Sheraton also launched its “Goodnight Room” campaign inspired by the children’s book Goodnight Moon, tying the brand’s long history to its modernized identity.
Pro Tip: Because Sheraton renovations roll out hotel by hotel, check recent property photos and the individual hotel’s room descriptions before booking. Two Sheratons in the same region may have very different renovation dates and room designs.
Sheraton’s Brand and Hotels Today
Today, Sheraton is a Premium brand within Marriott International. Marriott’s 2025 Form 10-K reports 436 Sheraton properties and 147,958 rooms worldwide as of December 31, 2025.
The regional count included 165 properties in the United States and Canada, 48 in Europe, 33 in the Middle East and Africa, 58 in Asia Pacific excluding China, 103 in Greater China, and 29 in the Caribbean and Latin America.
Sheraton itself describes the brand more broadly as having more than 400 locations across more than 70 countries. The brand’s long international history remains one of its defining features.
Sheraton guests can earn and redeem points through Marriott Bonvoy, subject to the program’s current rules. Marriott ownership also connects Sheraton properties to the company’s global reservation, marketing, development, and loyalty infrastructure.
The broader Marriott system has continued growing as well. As of March 31, 2026, Marriott reported more than 9,900 properties and nearly 1.8 million rooms across 146 countries and territories.
Key Takeaways
- Marriott International owns the Sheraton brand after completing its acquisition of Starwood Hotels & Resorts in September 2016.
- Sheraton’s official history begins in 1937, although its founders’ hotel activity can be traced to the early 1930s.
- The ownership chain is Sheraton’s founders → ITT in 1968 → Starwood in 1998 → Marriott in 2016.
- Marriott reported 436 Sheraton properties and 147,958 rooms at the end of 2025.
- Marriott owns the Sheraton name and brand system, but many individual Sheraton hotel buildings belong to independent property owners.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do Mormons still own Marriott?
No religious organization owns or controls Marriott International. Marriott is a publicly traded company with shares held by members of the Marriott family, institutional investors, and other shareholders. The founding family retains meaningful beneficial ownership and board involvement, but no single shareholder owns a majority of the company.
Who is the largest shareholder of Marriott?
Marriott’s 2026 proxy statement lists J.W. Marriott Jr. with 11.62% beneficial ownership as of March 1, 2026. Among major institutional holders listed in the proxy, Vanguard held 7.90% and BlackRock held 5.73%. Marriott notes that some family beneficial-ownership figures overlap, so family percentages should not simply be added together.
Who started the Sheraton hotel chain?
Ernest Henderson and Robert Moore founded the business that became Sheraton. Their hotel investments began in the early 1930s, while Sheraton’s official brand history starts in 1937 with their acquisition of a hotel in Springfield, Massachusetts. The Sheraton name was adopted as the company expanded.
Does Marriott own every Sheraton hotel building?
No. Marriott owns the Sheraton brand, but many Sheraton properties are owned by independent hotel or real-estate investors. Marriott may manage a property directly or license the Sheraton brand through a franchise agreement. Marriott says owned or leased lodging properties make up less than 1% of its overall hotel system.
Is Sheraton part of Marriott Bonvoy?
Yes. Sheraton participates in Marriott Bonvoy, so eligible stays can earn Bonvoy points and members can redeem points at participating Sheraton hotels under the program’s current terms.
Is Sheraton still owned by Starwood?
No. Starwood was Sheraton’s parent company from 1998 until Marriott completed its acquisition of Starwood in September 2016. Sheraton has been a Marriott International brand since that transaction closed.
Conclusion
So, who owns Sheraton now? Marriott International owns the Sheraton brand and has done so since completing its Starwood acquisition in September 2016. Sheraton’s ownership history runs from founders Ernest Henderson and Robert Moore to ITT, Starwood, and finally Marriott. Today, Sheraton remains a large international Premium brand, with 436 properties reported at the end of 2025. Just remember that Marriott’s ownership of the brand does not mean it owns every Sheraton hotel building; most major hotel systems rely heavily on independent owners, franchises, and management agreements.
Sources
- Sheraton Hotels & Resorts — Official History — founding timeline, NYSE listing, Reservatron, international expansion, China milestone, and 2013 Sheraton Shantou opening.
- Boston University School of Hospitality Administration — historical context on Sheraton’s early Massachusetts roots.
- Marriott International 2025 Form 10-K — SEC — Sheraton property and room counts, current Premium classification, and Marriott’s asset-light ownership model.
- Marriott International First-Quarter 2026 Results — SEC — current Marriott system size and country count as of March 31, 2026.
- Marriott–Starwood Amended Merger Agreement — SEC — 2016 transaction valuation and merger terms.
- Marriott International 2026 Proxy Statement — SEC — current beneficial ownership figures for Marriott family and institutional shareholders.