Marriott International was the first of the four large publicly held hotel companies to report first-quarter results and the numbers weren’t good, but they were better than expected by Wall Street analysts. Marriott’s net loss was $23 million (six cents per share), compared to a $121-million profit a year ago, but J.W. Marriott Jr., chairman and CEO, said it could have been worse.

“The lodging industry and Marriott International continue to feel the impact of the global economic downturn,” he said in a statement. “At the same time, however, we are finding new ways of controlling costs and driving revenue. Despite an almost 20 percent decline in revenue per available room for our worldwide company-operated hotels, our teams performed incredibly well to limit house profit margin declines to 340 basis points, ahead of our expectations. Our strong brands continue to drive significant revenue premiums compared to their competitors … Despite the downturn, we're moving ahead.”

He also pointed out the company’s $256 million in total hotel management and franchise fees as evidence of the strength of the business model.

RevPAR fell 19.6 for Marriott’s worldwide company-operated properties and 17.3 percent for system-wide properties. North American properties were down 18 percent (company operated) and 16.2 percent (system-wide). Marriott expects North American system-wide RevPAR to decline 22 to 25 percent in the second quarter.

“Our industry typically lags heading into a downturn and to recover, so we're obviously far from being out of the woods,” said Arne Sorenson, chief financial officer. “However, there are some initial signs of demand stabilization even if at today is very low levels “

Wyndham, Starwood and Choice are scheduled to report their first-quarter results next week.