Choice Hotels has announced 46 newly-opened franchised properties during the first quarter of 2012. Additionally, the company has executed a total of 64 new domestic contracts within the first quarter of 2012, a 14 percent increase over the same period last year.

The openings include hotels in 23 states and six additional countries includingAustralia,Brazil,France,Honduras,ItalyandNorway, adding more than 3,800 rooms to the company’s existing 495,000-plus rooms. The company previously opened a total of 256 new hotels throughout 2011.

“Despite the challenging economic climate, we’ve continued to be able to grow our system size and meet our development goals,” said David Pepper, senior vice president of global development for Choice Hotels.

“Financing is slowly returning across the industry and transactions are starting to pick up as our development pipeline continues to grow.”