Uncertainty around the COVID-19 pandemic remains for the hotel industry in 2021, but Choice Hotels International executives are optimistic about how its brands continue to outperform.

On a call to discuss fourth quarter and full-year 2020 earnings, Choice President and CEO Pat Pacious said the company's system of brands drove revenue-per-available-room results that outperformed the industry in "the fourth quarter and in 2020 as a whole."

Domestic systemwide revenue-per-available-room change surpassed the industry by 17 percentage points for the full year, declining 30.7%, he said.

"Since the onset of the pandemic in mid-March, our performance has achieved sequential quarter-over-quarter improvement with our fourth quarter domestic systemwide RevPAR declining 25.1% from the same quarter in 2019," he said.

Due to brand outperformance and confidence in its strategy, Choice decided to "accelerate certain strategic investments in our product portfolio and value proposition capabilities to position the company for continued success in the future," Pacious said.

He said the company expects its momentum to carry into the first quarter and continue outperforming the industry in the current environment.

Choice's extended-stay segment in particular outperformed the industry in 2020, Pacious said.

According to the company's earnings release, the extended-stay segment saw an average domestic systemwide occupancy rate of 69% throughout the year.

"The portfolio achieved average weekly occupancy rates of over 70% since the onset of the pandemic in mid-March through Dec. 31, 2020 — exceeding the industry weekly average by 30 percentage points," the release states.

WoodSpring Suites saw occupancy levels above 70% in the fourth quarter while "MainStay Suites gained nearly 22 percentage points on the local competition in RevPAR share in the fourth quarter, year over year," according to the release.

Choice's Suburban brand achieved an occupancy increase of 210 basis points in the fourth quarter compared to the same period in 2019.

In the fourth quarter, Choice awarded 195 domestic franchise agreements, a 36% year-over-year decrease. More than 70% of those agreements were for conversion hotels, according to the earnings release.

Pacious said Choice has been focused on lowering the total cost of ownership for its franchisees, a long-term trend that began before the pandemic.

The company accelerated a few things during the pandemic to help reduce the total cost of running a hotel, such as moving to a more flexible and affordable grab-and-go breakfast and housekeeping on demand, he said.

Franchisees have also been able to better handle expenses by taking advantage of government programs.

Pacious said approximately 85% of Choice's portfolio took Paycheck Protection Program loans or Economic Injury Disaster Loans in the second and third quarter of 2020.

"We think with the second draw that's been released in the late December legislation, that [it's] likely to be somewhere around 40% to 50% [of franchisees] at this point that have indicated they are going to apply," he said. "They are getting the needed relief they need to bridge where we need to get on a recovery perspective."

He added that "by and large, our franchisee health is in a very positive place relative to what's going in around them.

"With the optimism around vaccine rollout, the optimism around what we're seeing with 30-day plus bookings [in 2021] and the consumer sentiment we would expect to see once the pandemic begins to gets behind us ... there is for them a light at the end of the tunnel where six months ago that wasn't the case."

As of press time, Choice's stock was trading at $105.24 a share, down 1.4% year to date. The New York Stock Exchange was up 7.3% for the same period.