Choice Hotels International’s upscale brands—the Ascend Hotel Collection and Cambria Hotels—reported domestic room count growth of 24 percent year over year and outperformed local competitors in revenue per available room share gains by 12 and 14 percentage points, respectively, in the first half of 2021.
Ascend Hotel Collection outperformed the upscale segment in RevPAR change by nearly 26 percentage points in the second quarter compared to 2019, while achieving RevPAR share gains of 12 percentage points against local competitors compared to the first half of 2019. In addition, July RevPAR increased 17.7 percent, driven by an increase in average daily rate of 20.7 percent as compared to 2019. The soft brand has nearly 390 hotels open globally.
Cambria Hotels achieved its strongest RevPAR Index in the brand's history with a gain of nearly 15 percentage points against local competitors in the first half of the year, compared to 2019. Through June, the brand's RevPAR Index change exceeded local competitors in 14 of the previous 15 months. In addition, the brand grew its unit portfolio size by 14 percent to 58 hotels, and there were 17 projects under active construction at the end of June.
Ascend and Cambria set a record for upscale domestic openings in the first half of the year, including 22 properties added as part of the company's strategic alliance with Penn National Gaming.