4 Takeaways From Choice Hotels’ First Quarter 2017 Earnings
Photo Credit: Rendering of guest room at future Cambria hotels & suites Chicago - Magnificent Mile. Choice remains focused on growing the brand. Choice Hotels International / Choice Hotels International
Skift Take
Choice Hotels seems confident that its strategies to push more direct bookings, as well as grow in secondary and tertiary urban markets with upscale brands, is a formula for success. First quarter results seem to agree but it's still early in the year.
Rockville, Maryland-based Choice Hotels reported solid first quarter earnings for 2017, and its chief executives also delivered some interesting insights into the state of the hospitality industry, as well as the company's future growth plans given increasing competition not only from their peers but from the likes of Airbnb, too.
Profits in the first quarter totaled $28.7 million, with earnings per share at 51 cents, beating Wall Street expectations, and demonstrating a 38-percent increase over the same period last year. Domestic revenue per available room (RevPAR) was up 3.8 percent, exceeding total industry results by 40 basis points compared to the same chain scale categories researched by STR. Occupancy increased by 100 basis points. Average daily rates also grew by 1.9 percent.
Choice Hotels, which primarily acts as a franchise operator of hotels, collected domestic royalty fees of $64.5 million in the first quarter, up 6.6 percent from the same period last year. The number
