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Silver Spring hotel franchiser Choice Hotels International is living up to its name, with recent announcements that it will proceed with plans to open two properties in earthquake-ravaged Haiti, plus enter the Polish hospitality market.

Last month, before the Jan. 12 quake, Choice said it would open a 32-room Comfort Inn hotel and a 120-room Ascend Collection member hotel, both in Jacmel, its first properties in Haiti. They will be owned by Societe Immobiliere d'Agriculture, de Commerce, et de Tourisme of Westbury, N.Y., which was founded by a group of Haitians in 1996 to focus on real estate development in Haiti.

"Although the earthquake caused massive destruction and set back timetables, Choice Hotels together with the hotel owner and developer, SIMACT, will continue to collaborate to see these projects to completion and open two great properties in this coastal Caribbean town," said Brian Parker, Choice's vice president of emerging markets and new business development, in a statement issued late last month.

Choice also announced that it has stepped up its relief efforts, sending supplies such as food, water, fuel, soap and laundry detergent to the Comfort Inn in Jacmel. More than 1,500 pounds of food and drinking water was scheduled to arrive last weekend by boat from the Dominican Republic, according to company information.

"The hotel did not experience structural damage and is now providing shelter to guests and local families who lost their homes in the earthquake," Parker said.

The Choice properties will be the first new global hotel brands in Haiti in more than a decade, the company said.

Meanwhile, Choice said last week that it will open its first six properties in Poland.

"Our strong international expansion continues to be a key driver of Choice Hotels future growth, and the addition of the Polish market strengthens our network of hotels throughout Europe," said CEO Stephen P. Joyce in a statement. "Choice continues to execute its strategic efforts on worldwide development and has identified Europe as a key market needed to achieve success."

The new properties are owned and managed by Polish real estate developer Hotel System, a subsidiary of Salwator Capital Group.

The flagship property, with 133 suites, is the Clarion Hotel Grand Baltic Resort & Spa in Dzwirzyno on the Baltic Sea. The other five properties are Quality brand hotels in Krakow, Poznan, Katowice and Breslau.

Choice is the latest Maryland hotel company to have a presence in Poland. Marriott International of Bethesda has two hotels in the Warsaw area, while Host Hotels & Resorts, also of Bethesda, owns a Sheraton-brand property in Warsaw.

With the domestic market fairly well-saturated, other nations, especially India and China, provide the industry's most promising expansion opportunities, said Joseph A. McInerney, CEO of the American Hotel & Lodging Association in Washington, D.C.

But former Iron Curtain nations such as Poland are also ripe for U.S. hotel companies, most of which have gone global in recent years, McInerney said.

"In Poland, most of the hotels are communist-style hotels, with the older ones destroyed in the war," he said. "So a new product can compete well."

With its smaller hotels, usually with 200 to 250 rooms each, Choice has a "great opportunity" to increase its reach with its new Polish properties, especially because they will operate as franchises with less risk for Choice, McInerney said.

But the new ventures come at a still-precarious time for the hotel industry, which is still reeling from the recession.

"The [financing] environment is weak for new construction," Joyce said in a recent conference call with analysts. "It's an incredible time to build if you can get the financing."

He said he's not anticipating any significant easing of credit for building new hotels through this year. But when it does recover, financing opportunities will return first for smaller hotels, which would be to Choice's advantage, he said.

Choice franchises more than 6,000 hotels in the U.S. and around the world.