Marriott International Inc., the largest publicly traded U.S. hotel chain, said second-quarter earnings increased as demand from groups and corporate travelers rose for high-end hotels in such large cities as Washington.

Net income climbed to $143 million, or 42 cents a share, from $135 million, or 37 cents, a year earlier, the Bethesda, Maryland-based company said Wednesday in a statement. Results matched the average estimate of 11 analysts in a Bloomberg survey.

Earnings were helped by group bookings and demand for high- end hotel rooms in major cities in North America and Asia, Nikhil Bhalla, a senior lodging analyst at FBR & Co. in Arlington, Virginia, said before results were announced. In Washington, demand rose “slightly” from the first quarter, he said. Marriott, whose brands include Ritz-Carlton, has about 5 percent of its rooms in the U.S. capital.

“April saw very strong group bookings,” Bhalla said in a telephone interview. “And Washington, D.C., was better in the second quarter than in the first. That helped them. Upper- upscale and upscale hotels continued to do relatively well in the second quarter.”