Choice Hotels Wants to Make More Acquisitions

Good morning from Skift. It’s Wednesday, August 9. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.

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Episode Notes

Choice Hotels views its recent acquisition of Radisson Americas as an enormous success and it’s strongly considering making more deals, reports Senior Hospitality Editor Sean O’Neill. 

Choice CEO Patrick Pacious touted the benefits of the acquisition during Choice’s second quarter earnings call on Tuesday. As for future acquisition activity, Pacious said Choice is always looking for deals that could boost the return on investment for hotel owners and grow brands. He added that Choice sees opportunities to expand its portfolio outside of the United States.  

Choice reported that its revenue per available room — an important hotel industry metric — increased 20% from the same period in 2019. The company also set a quarterly record for revenue. 

Next, the Chinese government is limiting overseas group travel for its citizens to certain destinations. Those restrictions are stunting the global travel industry’s recovery, writes Travel Experiences Reporter Selene Brophy. 

Chinese travelers can only take group tours to less than half of the countries that were available to them pre-Covid. Brophy reports the U.S. is not on that list as Chinese travel agencies aren’t permitted to sell any group tour products to the U.S. Sienna Parulis-Cook, an executive at China-based marketing company Dragon Trail International, said Chinese outbound tourism to the U.S. is also limited in part because of visa delays. Chinese travel agents surveyed said visa delays were the biggest obstacle in selling outbound tourism in 2024. 

Chinese outbound travel hit 65% of 2019 level during the country’s most recent national holiday period. 

Finally, Turkish Airlines and Thai Airways have unveiled a plan to form a joint venture covering flights between Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, reports Jay Shabat, senior analyst at Skift publication Airline Weekly. 

The two carriers already have a codeshare arrangement, which enables them to market each other’s flights. But Shabat notes joint ventures go deeper, often involving revenue sharing, collaborating pricing and cargo cooperation among other practices. Turkish and Thai haven’t yet detailed their exact plans, other than announcing that Thai will start serving Istanbul in December.