Choice Hotels Narrows Its Revenue Gap, but Its Upscale Brands Still Trail

Photo Credit: The lobby of the Choice Hotels International headquarters in North Bethesda, Maryland. Choice Hotels Choice Hotels' budget brands outpaced their U.S. industrywide benchmark in the summer, offering an early sign of progress for CEO Dominic Dragisich. But the company's higher-priced brands continued to lag. U.S. revenue per available room (RevPAR) grew 3.8%, roughly a 1.5 percentage points above Wall Street's forecast. Dragisich said on a Monday earnings call that October's RevPAR was about 7%. Dragisich's core problem in August was that Choice trailed in every price tier where it competes, from economy to upscale, according to CoStar data. The third quarter improved the picture without erasing it. "We did narrow the gap," Dragisich said, referring to Choice's performance relative to industry averages. Choice's budget hotels outperformed the industry, growing RevPAR at 3.5% against about 2.5%, according to Truist Securities, citing CoStar data. Yet its upscale a