As both a hotelier and part of a household with an electric car, HotelAVE President and CEO Michelle Russo has a cross-sectional perspective on hotels with charging stations.

Her husband was the first person in Rhode Island to get an electric car, she said, and finding electric vehicle charging stations factors significantly when they drive for overnight trips.

“When we’re traveling to places that are more remote drive-to destinations not located in any major market, he absolutely has to figure out where is the closest charging station,” she said. “That is all part of the travel planning.”

The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported in September 2023 that the number of U.S. registered light-duty EVs on the road reached 2.13 million in 2021, up from fewer than 100,000 in 2012. The EIA also reported that in the second quarter of 2023, hybrid, plug-in hybrid and battery-electric vehicles accounted for 16% of light-duty vehicle sales in the U.S., an increase compared to previous years.

With the number of EV and plug-in hybrids growing, more guests will be in Russo’s shoes, figuring out where they stay based on whether their hotel has, or is close to, an EV charging station.

Having an EV charging station will still make a hotel stand out, at least for now, said Rod Hurt, regional director of operations for Twenty Four Seven Hotels, which manages several hotels with EV charging stations.

His company did a survey while it was in the middle of determining budgets for fiscal year 2023, he said. Every hotel that didn’t have a charging station went through an exercise of finding the closest charging site to the property. Some were more than a mile away.

“For certain vehicles, that’s not a service enhancer for the customer that absolutely, positively needs to plug in,” he said, adding that’s increasingly true for hotels in California where there’s a state mandate requiring all new vehicles sold in the state to be electric or plug-in hybrid by 2035.

There was a time when hotels advertised air conditioning and TVs as a way to stand out among competitors, Russo said. WiFi is a more recent example.

Hilton recently announced it plans to introduce 20,000 Tesla charging stations across 2,000 hotels, she said. Similarly, Marriott recently partnered with an EV charging station provider for its hotels. The number of hotels with charging stations will grow significantly over the years.

“I think we’re at that inflection point now,” she said.

While having EV chargers won’t be the be-all, end-all answer to attracting guests, it will matter when comparing hotels that have them to those that don’t, said Robert Cole, founder and CEO of hotel marketing strategy and technology consultancy Rock Cheetah.

“I think the question is going to wind up being, if you don’t have them, how much are you just seeding that demand over to your competition who does?” he said.

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