Skift Take
Repositioning properties to function more like apartments than hotels is a financial savior for Extended Stay America.
The extended stay hotel sector’s strong performance through the depths of the coronavirus pandemic comes from a tightening embrace of guests who reserve significantly longer stays.
Extended Stay America still reported an $8.8 million second quarter loss late Monday, but that is significantly less than the hundreds of millions of dollars lost by companies like Marriott and Hilton. Extended Stay America’s leaders attribute their relative success to the company diminishing its focus on transient travelers who reserve rooms for less than a week and focusing on guests who stay a month or longer.
“Our teams are nimble and react quickly to changing market conditions. Last spring we saw many important demand drivers such as transient leisure essentially disappear during the quarter,” Extended Stay America CEO Bruce Haase said Tuesday during an investor call. “Early on, we aligned our field operations, sales, and revenue management teams around a single goal: Find new sources of extended stay demand, and bring those customers to our hotels.”
Longer-term
