Hilton Holds Off Extended-Stay Field Once More

In a year in which no fewer than three of the major hotel companies in BTN's 2025 Hotel Survey opened the first properties of new extended-stay brands, Hilton Worldwide's brands narrowly topped the extended-stay portion of the survey.

Hilton, one of the three companies to launch a new extended-stay brand this year, topped Hyatt Hotels Corp.'s extended-stay offerings—Hyatt was in second place, as it is in the main BTN Hotel Survey rankings—by five hundredths of a point on an ascending one-to-six scale. The contest was close, as the four hotel companies in the extended-stay Hotel Survey were separated by only 11 hundredths of a point. 

But not all was well for hoteliers in this year's extended-stay Hotel Survey. The overall average extended-stay score across all hotel companies and categories was 4.46, down from 4.66 last year (and 4.80 the year before that).

The decline in buyers' ratings of hoteliers perhaps were most marked in the categories surrounding rates and negotiations: The average score for rate availability and transparency declined 0.25 year over year, while average scores for sales empowerment and responsiveness and a partnership approach to corporate business declined 0.38 points and 0.33 points, respectively.

Why such scores dropped is a complicated question. Changes in extended-stay hotel rates have more or less reflected trends in the broader hotel industry: In the United States, the extended-stay average daily rate in the first quarter of 2025 increased 1.6 percent year over year while Q2 ADR dropped 0.4 percent, according to The Highland Group. 

It should be noted that the introduction of new extended-stay brands doesn't necessarily presuppose a major increase in supply. Highland, a firm that specializes in extended-stay lodging analytics, for some time has noted constrained supply growth in the sector. Limited supply could offer buyers a difficult negotiating experience, but on the other hand, U.S. extended-stay occupancy in Q1 and Q2 was the lowest since 2020, according to Hyatt. 

Hyatt VP of global sales Christina Gambini suggested the lower scores could be a function of a more challenging experience found by buyers in 2025, affected by uncertainty in both demand and macroeconomics. 

"Extended stay is one of those segments that can be very up and down," Gambini said. "It depends on project needs and such. And when we have a year like this year, where there's economic challenges, project business can sometimes be cut or the company holds off on doing that for a little while. Perhaps that is having an impact."

Hilton's Smart Showing

Hilton Worldwide led in four categories in the extended-stay portion of BTN's Hotel Survey: traveler safety and security, product quality and service consistency, onsite programming and a partnership approach to corporate business. 

Those results largely were due to buyers' ratings of Hilton's Home2 Suites and Homewood Suites extended-stay brands, but the company this year opened the first property of its third such brand, LivSmart Studios. 

LivSmart is designed as a midscale extended-stay brand, and the first of its kind opened in July in Tullahoma, Tenn. A second is set to open in October in Kokomo, Ind., and Hilton plans to open more than 90 LivSmart properties "in the coming years" and has "over 225 deals in various stages of negotiation," the company said.

Hilton SVP and global sales head Frank Passanante called the new brand "game-changing" and said there was no concern of oversupply given the new brands launched throughout the industry.

"We think [the segment] is underserved," Passanante said. "It's still certainly underserved with the quality of product we've introduced with the support of our extended-stay customers and our partners. I think we are really hitting the mark on what the long-stay customer needs, both the end user and the many specialty agencies and those that work with insurance adjusters and those that work with workforce customers."

The Tennessee LivSmart, a new-build property, has 89 rooms, each designed as a suite with a kitchen, stovetop, dishwasher and microwave.

Hyatt's Studio Vision

Hyatt Hotels Corp., which led in two Hotel Survey extended-stay categories—rate availability and transparency, and data quality and reporting—also added a brand in 2025. 

Hyatt Studios, Hyatt's new upper-midscale extended-stay brand, launched in April in Tillmans Corner, Ala., outside of Mobile, joining Hyatt's other extended-stay brand, Hyatt House. 

The Alabama Hyatt Studios property offers 122 rooms, a 24-7 market and electric vehicle charging stations, which the company said would be a brand standard.

"Extended stay is an important market for us," Hyatt's Gambini said. "Hyatt Studios was built on listening to the customers from our extended-stay segment. We brought them into a showroom in Chicago, and we said, OK, here's what our model room looks like. What are we missing? One reason we are successful in that space is because we collaborated with those customers to ensure that we're meeting the needs of that specific segment."

Gambini said such customer feedback directly informed the decision to have all Hyatt Studios microwave ovens incorporate air fryer functionality. "Air fryers are a thing now, and customers were asking for it because the project business that’s there for a month… they are having meals in their rooms, and having an air fryer was important."

Hyatt plans to open a second Hyatt Studios in December in Huntsville, Ala., with additional openings planned in Jacksonville, Fla., Harrisonburg, Va., and Laredo, Texas.

Marriott Adds On

Entering 2025 Marriott International already had several extended-stay brands, including Residence Inn, Element by Westin, TownePlace Suites and Apartments by Marriott Bonvoy, so perhaps it's not much of a surprise that it finished first in the strategic locations for business needs category in the Hotel Survey.

This year, like Hyatt and Hilton, Marriott added a new midscale extended-stay brand: StudioRes, the first of which opened this spring in Fort Myers, Fla., with 124 studio-style rooms. 

Daily rates at the Fort Myers property should be about $100, according to Marriott.

Marriott said it had more than 50 StudioRes projects in its signed pipeline, around half of which are currently under construction.

IHG Broadens Candlewood

IHG Hotels & Resorts led the sales empowerment and responsiveness extended-stay category in BTN's Hotel Survey with its longtime extended-stay brands Candlewood Suites and Staybridge Suites.

IHG this year is set to bring midscale Candlewood outside of its Americas region for the first time, through a 2024 partnership with German hotel operator Novum Hospitality that will bring IHG's brand to the country.

Upscale Staybridge Suites has about 335 existing properties with 157 in the development pipeline, while there are about 392 Candlewood properties currently open and another 183 in the pipeline.