BETHESDA, Md.–January 5, 2018–RLJ Lodging Trust (the “Company”) (NYSE: RLJ) today announced that Ryan Meliker will be joining the Company as Senior Vice President, Corporate Strategy and Investor Relations, effective January 17, 2018. Mr. Meliker will report to Leslie D. Hale, the Company’s Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer.

“We are excited for Ryan to join the RLJ team. With more than 15 years of experience as a lodging and real estate research analyst, Ryan is well-known and highly regarded by the investment community,” commented Ms. Hale. “Not only does he possess significant lodging industry experience, he also covered RLJ for many years and is very familiar with our assets, business and strategy.”

Most recently, Mr. Meliker was Managing Director at Canaccord Genuity where he was the senior lodging and REIT analyst. Prior to that, he was Managing Director at MLV & Company and was also the lead lodging REIT analyst at Morgan Stanley Equity Research.