The chief executive officers of two hotel titans said Monday they were unfazed by recent bearish first-quarter industry data.
"We signed over 1,000 new rooms last year, which I think is a record in the industry, and we're on a pace to beat that this year, so we continue to see new unit growth," Hilton Worldwide CEO Christopher Nassetta told CNBC's "Squawk Alley."
"The fundamentals are still pretty darn good in our industry. On a same-store basis, we're continuing to see decent growth. On a new-unit basis … we continue to set new records," he said.
Meanwhile, Marriott CEO Arne Sorenson said in another interview that any first-quarter slowdown could be attributed to the calendar.
"This year compared to last, we had significant holidays [in the first quarter]. Think about Easter moving from April to March. That is bad for travel," he told CNBC's "Squawk on the Street." "I think the first-quarter numbers are really just a red herring."
Still, CBRE Group, a Los Angeles–based real estate firm, released a report Friday that showed lodging demand grew only 1 percent in the first quarter and, coupled with a rise in new supply, led to the first national occupancy decline since 2009 in the U.S.