Key Points
- Choice Hotels is paying about $130 million for Harvest Hosts, roughly 3.5 times the $37 million Stripes paid in 2021, funded with cash and its revolver.
- Harvest Hosts is a subscription business, not a lodging one: members pay $99 to $179 a year, hosts collect nothing, and revenue comes from the membership fee.
- Choice is the last of the big four U.S. franchisors into outdoor lodging, following Hilton-AutoCamp, Hyatt-Under Canvas, and Marriott’s Postcard Cabins purchase.
Summary
Choice Hotels is buying Harvest Hosts, an RV membership club, for about $130 million in cash, its first deal under new CEO Dom Dragisich and its first move outside hotels. Harvest Hosts connects RV owners with 11,200 host locations — wineries, farms, breweries, and museums — where members park overnight free after paying $99 to $179 a year for access. The company says its community tops 500,000 RVers, who have spent more than $200 million at host businesses since 2010. Choice is paying about 3.5 times what growth equity firm Stripes paid for the business in 2021, funding the deal with cash and its revolving credit facility, and says it won’t materially affect this year’s results. Harvest Hosts keeps its brand, stays a standalone business, and CEO Joel Holland stays on. The stated logic is loyalty: Choice says its program members over-index among RV travelers. It has not said how it will market to them. The deal puts Choice into the outdoor lodging race its larger rivals entered first — Hilton with AutoCamp, Hyatt with Under Canvas, and Marriott with Postcard Cabins and Trailborn, now bundled into an Outdoor Collection by Marriott Bonvoy.
