Love’s Travel Stops & Country Stores is strategically refocusing on its core business by divesting its portfolio of 19 hotel properties. This decision, announced in June, marks a significant shift for the travel center chain as it aims to enhance its primary services. The transition is anticipated to conclude in the first quarter of 2025, allowing Love’s to concentrate on its strengths in store operations, restaurant services, and truck care solutions.
Photograph of a Love's Travel Stop exterior, highlighting its clean and modern design, with fuel pumps visible and the Love's logo prominently displayed.
According to a company spokesperson, this strategic move will enable Love’s Travel Stops to better serve its customer base by investing in and expanding its core offerings. The focus will be on “complementary services and products that meet the evolving needs of the current customer base,” ensuring Love’s remains a leader in the travel stop industry. As of recent reports, Love’s had successfully sold 15 of its hotels, with four remaining properties in the process of being sold. These include a Fairfield by Marriott in Van, Texas, a Sleep Inn & Suites by Choice Hotels in DeFuniak Springs, Florida, and Cumberland, Maryland, and a Best Western Plus in Chandler, Arizona. Love’s has chosen not to disclose the buyers, citing confidentiality agreements.
The venture into the hotel industry began for Love’s in 2014 with its first hotel opening in Pecos, Texas. This expansion was initially driven by industry demand and the availability of land acquired for new travel stops. Hotels were seen as a natural extension of Love’s commitment to highway hospitality, offering travelers the same reliable and welcoming experience embodied in their slogan “Clean Places, Friendly Faces.” However, the market landscape has evolved over the past decade. Increased competition from other hotel brands and shifts in Love’s strategic growth and capital investment plans have led to this re-evaluation of their hotel business. Current and projected customer and market demands now prioritize Love’s core travel stop offerings.
Love’s Travel Stops, headquartered in Oklahoma City, has recently celebrated significant milestones, including surpassing 650 stores nationwide. The company is also commemorating its 60th anniversary in 2024, marking six decades of service to travelers. This year also brought the passing of co-founder Judy Love in November at the age of 87. Judy and her late husband, Tom Love, were the driving force behind the family-owned business, which they started in 1964 with a $5,000 loan. Their legacy continues as Love’s Travel Stops adapts and innovates to meet the needs of modern travelers, now with a renewed focus on its foundational strengths in the travel stop sector.
