Dive Brief:
- Love’s Travel Stops & Country Stores is planning to sell all of its hotels by the first quarter of 2025, a company spokesperson confirmed to C-Store Dive on Monday.
- The company, which owned 19 hotel properties as of this summer, has already sold 14 of these locations to multiple buyers, the spokesperson said. Four of the remaining five are under contract, and Love’s expects to sell the fifth and final location early next year, the spokesperson said.
- Oklahoma City-based Love’s has been in the hotel business since 2014. Some of its franchised hotel brands have included Best Western Plus, Sleep Inn & Suites and Hampton Inn & Suites.
Dive Insight:
Love’s, one of the largest travel center operators in the U.S. with over 650 locations in 42 states, entered the lodging business a decade ago after noticing that developers in some areas were building hotels on land near its truck stops, Jim Wheeler, Love’s director of hospitality, told The Oklahoman in 2017.
At that time, Wheeler told the newspaper that Love’s had opened 11 hotels in 2016 and had another 11 planned for 2017. According to Love’s website, its hotels were located in several states, including Arizona, Colorado, Texas, Georgia, Florida, Maryland and Nebraska.
Although it’s unclear how many hotels Love’s eventually reached, the spokesperson said company leadership made the "strategic decision” in June to sell all 19 of its hotel properties to focus more on its core operations of c-stores, restaurants and truck care solutions.
The spokesperson added that Love’s intends to focus more on “adding complementary services and products that meet the evolving needs of the current customer base.”
Love’s has taken on numerous initiatives in recent years, such as launching a billion dollar store remodel project, upgrading its in-store technology, expanding its private label product assortment and building dozens of new locations.
