Choice Hotels’ New Interim CEO’s First Task: Fix the Revenue Gap

Choice Hotels' interim CEO Dominic Dragisich faced a revenue gap in much of his U.S. business in the second quarter. Revenue per available room (RevPAR) at Choice's upscale-and-above hotels in the U.S. rose 1.3% year over year, against an industry average for those chain scales of roughly 5%, according to data from CoStar. Midscale and upper midscale grew 1.1% versus roughly 4% for the industry. Budget hotels declined 0.7% while the segment overall eked out a gain of about 1%. "This result implies to us that they again continue to lose market share," wrote Patrick Scholes, analyst at Truist Securities, in a report on Choice. Dragisich, 11 weeks into the top job, acknowledged the issue on Wednesday's earnings call. "My job is to close the gap between where we are today and where I believe this business can perform," he told analysts. Why Choice Is Lagging Dragisich's explanation for the und