After years of concentrating on portfoliowide renovations, Extended Stay America had zero hotels in its pipeline at the beginning of 2018. A year later, ESA's pipeline numbered 6,972 rooms across 57 hotels. Of those, 5,080 rooms across 42 properties will be franchised. ESA has been shifting to an asset-light model, and while the number of rooms in its system has held steady since May 2017 at 68,780 across 625 hotels, the number of rooms the company itself owns has dropped to 61,486 across 554 hotels.
ESA's net income fell 1.9 percent year over year in the fourth quarter to $39.4 million, but net income for the full year jumped 23 percent to $211.8 million. Comparable systemwide occupancy grew 3.1 percentage points year over year in the fourth quarter to 72.9 percent, though a 3.4 percent decline in average daily rate, to $65.01, partially offset those gains. Revenue per available room grew 0.9 percent year over year in the fourth quarter to $47.38. For the full year of 2018, comparable systemwide occupancy rose 0.6 percentage points to 75.2 percent, ADR rose 1.1 percent to $67.90 and RevPAR increased 2 percent to $51.09.
According to ESA's guidance for 2019, RevPAR will grow by between 0 and 2 percent. Among factors holding growth in check are markets where RevPAR had jumped in 2018 after 2017's hurricanes and now is coming down.
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