Hospitality Investment Trends

Last year, HPG Advisory Services looked at the Global Hotel Investment Landscape as international travel was beginning to re-emerge after Covid-19. We explored some of the key considerations for investors and owners and looked at which geographic regions and styles of properties were most likely to see an immediate uplift post-pandemic.  

Since then, consumer confidence towards travel has increased, and as restrictions are being lifted in numerous countries, and many hospitality businesses are reporting a promising return to growth.  

Here, we review the emerging trends and what opportunities the hospitality sector presents in the future. Whilst we’ve taken various insights into consideration, we must acknowledge the ongoing conflict and humanitarian crisis in Ukraine which continues to threaten stability throughout Europe and events there could quickly shift any current trends in unpredictable directions. 

What happened in 2021? 

Firstly, let’s recap on some of the hotel investment highlights from 2021. The Caterer has reported that hotel investment in the UK grew by 84% on 2020 levels and at £4.14 billion, was just shy of the 15-year average. Private equity was particularly interested in regional hotel investment which was particularly buoyant, and it was clear that international investors still see great value in the UK market with investments relatively split between investment from within and from outside the UK. 

The hotel sector has had a resilient year with strong momentum in the final quarter showcasing the appetite for UK hotel assets. While there remains operational challenges in the short-term, investors continue to be positive on the long-term outlook of the sector and we anticipate another strong year in 2022 for the UK hotel investment market.” – Tim Stoyle, Head of UK Hotels at Savills. 

Investor trust also returned to Spain as the €3.19 billion (as noted by Christie & Co.) where investments exceeded pre-pandemic figures. 2020 had seen a strong pull away from urban hotel investment, a trend reinforced by one of HPG’s clients that completed two transactions in the Iberian Peninsula during the pandemic. 

Continuing Trends into 2022 

Recruitment and Retention   

One of the biggest challenges in hospitality, since the start of the pandemic and closure of so many businesses, has been recruiting and retaining employees. Furlough, redundancies and the continuing effects of Brexit forced many front-line employees to either join new industries or return to their home countries, precipitating a perfect storm for the decline in available talent in the hospitality industry.  

As with every challenge, there is an opportunity and any hospitality organisation that can make their business more attractive in what is currently a candidate-driven marketplace will have a huge advantage. Working from home, digital nomads, flexible working and reimagined office space all became the norm during the pandemic. New working trends are condensing the space between business and leisure and the portmanteau Bleisure has re-emerged.  

Hospitality, especially at the luxury end, has always given employees an insight into a luxury lifestyle and the opportunity to travel or live abroad. Company benefits that replicate this can still be very appealing to potential candidates while also giving them a valuable insight into customer expectations and a road to building empathy and genuine connections with the guests they take care of.  

Hospitality’s Digital Transformation 

Investors will be keeping a keen eye on the increased digital transformation of hospitality service and how they may be able to leverage these digital innovations to drive customer experiences, revenues and return on investment.  

The pandemic was a catalyst for the hospitality industry to accelerate processes for everything from contactless payments to online ordering and mobile hotel check-in. The expectations of digital-savvy customers are very high, but the concept of creating completely new digital experiences to complement the more traditional in-person experiences doesn’t seem quite as far away as it did two years ago. While taking on too much could harm the existing customer experience, successfully integrating innovative, creative and exciting digital experiences could be very tempting to investors, eager to catch the next big wave of this transformation. 

ESG and Property Investment 

We recently explored how the Environmental, Social and Governance strategy of businesses is a key consideration for potential employees when choosing a new organisation to work for. Unsurprisingly, ESG is now playing a large part in how property investors are thinking about their investments. Since property is usually a longer-term investment, ensuring that all new buildings have sustainable credentials and retro-fitting existing buildings with environmentally friendly features will help future-proof their investment. 

ESG Investment Funds are also increasingly popular and have rewarded investors with solid returns over the last few years. Larger Hospitality chains, who form part of these funds are often keen to ensure that the hospitality operations are aligned to the expectations of these funds manager and investors. As a result, the role of Hotel Asset Management has become increasingly popular as owners look to listen to the market in order to protect their assets and drive growth.  

General Investor Trends 

The recent 2022 Knight Frank Wealth Report looked at investment trends for popular luxury items such as art, whisky, classic cars, diamonds, wine and watches. While these investors had different experiences through the pandemic, they all seem to be predicting some sort of future that embraces digital transformations with Cryptocurrency, NFTs and the Metaverse featuring heavily. Many investors appear to be dipping their toes into this area so as to not be left behind, but the majority seem to have little understanding of how this digital future might actually play out. In many ways, the future is unwritten and it will be the innovators that best capture their moment that will ultimately succeed.  

 

HPG Advisory Services have exceptional industry relationships and proven successes with operators, developers and investors in the hotel, and hospitality sectors across Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. Our services include executive search, human capital architecture, talent management consultancy, behavioural profiling and a range of human capital services tailored to meet the specific challenges of each of our clients.  

We are proud to have delivered some of the industry’s most talented leaders into key appointments. If you’re looking to build, strengthen or diversify a role, a team or your entire business, please contact us today.  

Dan Akhtar, Managing Director of HPG Advisory Services +44 20 8600 1166 / +44 7808 157796 / dan@hpgsearch.com 

Briefing: The measured approach to decision making

According to a report by CIMA; ‘72% of organisations admit to at least one strategic initiative failing in the last three years as a result of flaws in their decision making process.’

It is said that we make 35,000 decisions a day. In a fast evolving business day, we need to have enough confidence in our information and processes to make decisions quickly. In the longer term, important strategic changes need to be considered and implemented carefully, as our experts discuss in these videos:

Our industry is changing fast, in hospitality, time sensitive data can now be used to update strategies on the fly. But investing in the technology to do this is in and of itself a big decision to make and even a good idea can be badly actioned.

The report ‘Joining the dots: decision making for a new era’ from CIMA (Chartered Institute of Management Accountants) surveyed board-level executives at large organisations. In the survey, 80% of respondents said flawed information has been used to make strategic decisions.

Technology and data, when set up carefully, can be the competitive advantage that makes a significant difference to your business. With so much data coming through it is important it is systemized and ordered well but 36% of executives say their organisation is not coping with information overload. There is debate over how useful ‘big data’ is, with 37% saying it has helped and 32% saying it has made things worse.

Another factor in good decision making, identified by the report, is communication. 43% said their level of trust in fellow executives needed improvement and 57% said more active collaboration was required.

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Video clips produced by ybc.tv for the Hospitality Channel, including interview from industry conferences such as the IHIF conference as well as specific Hospitality Channel shoots.

Briefing: Are alternatives now mainstream?

Osprey Equity Partners recently agreed to fund an £80m development of a GoNative aparthotel in East London. They are backed by LJ Partnership.

Alternative accommodation types like aparthotels and hostels are becoming increasingly attractive to investors. More in-depth data from historic transactions and long established properties in the sector, have given investors greater insight on which to base their decisions. This is slowly bringing more products into the mainstream, as our industry experts discuss in these videos:

A report by WATG released last year showed that one attractive element of aparthotels is the cost effectiveness to build. It states that on a site with an £17.5m acquisition cost, a 4 star hotel would take £28.2m to construct and a 4 star aparthotel only £27.2m. It also states that terminal value on the aparthotel would be £93.1m and only £82.3m on the hotel, where both have an exit yield of 5%.

Another difference between hotels and aparthotels highlighted by WATG is that, in an aparthotel, rooms division accounts for some 93% of revenues, whereas hotels take a large portion of revenue from F&B and other areas.

Finally, WATG’s report showed GOP margins of 63% and 49% for the respective aparthotel and hotel.

When completed the GoNative aparthotel will be a 21 storey property. GoNative will manage the property under a hotel management agreement.

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Video clips produced by ybc.tv for the Hospitality Channel, including interview from industry conferences such as the IHIF conference as well as specific Hospitality Channel shoots.

Briefing: A surge in hotel investment

2015 has been a great year for hotel investment so far. There has been renewed positivity in the market and a rise in portfolio transactions. According to JLL, the UK has led transactions in the EMEA, with deals up 172% in the first half of 2015 compared to 2014. Overall in the EMEA region half year transaction volumes are up 85%. The US has also seen a rise in investment with transaction volume nearly doubling in the first half of 2015.

In this briefing industry insiders discuss the state of hotel investment, and who is investing in what:

JLL have reported that significant amounts of investments into the EMEA region has come from China and North America. Chinese investment has amounted to $1.9 billion so far this year.  Investment from North American private equity funds, which has reached $1.1 billion, has accounted for 57% of regional UK portfolio deals.

International investment into America amounted to $6.6 billion in the first half of 2015 representing nearly 30% of deal volume and showing a marked increase on 2014.

Some portfolio moves this year have included Accor’s restructuring of HotelInvest’s assets, which has involved the sale of 29 hotels in Germany and the Netherlands under a €234 million sales & Franchise back agreement in April, and the sale of seven hotels in the UK and Ireland for €38 million in May.

In June, Ashford Trust announced its intention to sell a 23 select-service hotel portfolio. And last month Pinnacle Hotel Management (PHM) sold a 15-hotel, select-service portfolio comprised of Marriott- and Hilton-branded hotels for $203 million to the Blackstone Group.

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Video clips produced by yBC for the Hospitality Channel, including interview from industry conferences such as the IHIF conference as well as specific Hospitality Channel shoots.

Briefing: Serviced apartment sector is mature and growing

A new report from Travel Intelligence Network (TIN) shows that there has been a 14% growth in the serviced apartment supply chain globally since last year. The report, commissioned by The Apartment Service, found that there are almost 750,000 serviced apartments worldwide. It shows that serviced apartments are increasingly used by businesses for project work. And, like the rest of the hospitality industry, this sector has not gone unaffected by changes in distribution with 75% of operators receiving bookings from OTAs.

As serviced apartments gain prominence in the hospitality industry, four experts discuss the unique benefits and challenges of business and investment in the sector:

According to The Apartment Service: ‘The report highlights that the serviced apartment industry has reached a level of maturity that is showing future growth of supply.’ Deals are being done across the industry. At the end of 2014 there were approximately 1.700 units in the development pipeline in London according to the UK Serviced Apartment Report – Q4 2014 by Savills. There is also strong industry growth in Scotland with RevPAA up 16.2% year on year.

A recent merger between SACO and Oaktree Capital Management, announced on the 2nd March 2015, has resulted in the formation of a £60m hospitality company. The combined company has an inventory of 1645 apartments and is launching a new brand – Beyonder ApartHotels, which will focus on millennial travellers and will open its first ApartHotel in December 2015.

Frasers Hospitality announced the development of a new property in Hamburg recently (20th March 2015) which is the 50th city the company has entered.

Dublin based serviced apartment company StayCity has 1000 apartments across Europe and is due to open properties in Birmingham, Lyon and London in 2015.

And an industry leader BridgeStreet Global Hospitality, which rebranded last year, is going strong with 50,000 apartments in 60 countries and a collection of awards.

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Video clips produced by yBC for the Hospitality Channel, including interview from industry conferences such as the IHIF conference as well as specific Hospitality Channel shoots.

Briefing: hospitality a key driver of economic growth

The value that hospitality creates for all economies across the world is sometimes overlooked by the global governments. This is exacerbated by the hotel industry being historically very poor at coming together in one-voice and explaining eloquently how significant a thriving hotel market can be to an area, region or even country.

In this briefing we hear from key experts about the consequences of a thriving hospitality industry and what the sector could be doing more of to push governments to recognise it as a stable hedge against economic instability. Including comment from:

  • Paul Slattery, Director of Otus & Co. Advisory on the next 10 years being crucial for global governments
  • Gaël Le Lay, Head of Hotel Investment for AXA Real Estate on the hotels sector growth being correlated with economic development
  • Robert Gaymer-Jones, CEO of Sofitel Luxury Hotels on pushing governments further to encourage tourism
  • Marc Socker, Senior Director – Hotel Fund Management of Invesco Real Estate on what he wishes David Cameron, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, would do for the industry

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Video clips produced by ybc.hpgcms.wpengine.com for the Hospitality Channel, including interviews from industry conferences such as the IHIF conference as well as specific Hospitality Channel shoots.

Briefing: an appetite for investment in the Middle East

With the world’s eye currently focused on specific parts of the Middle East, it is important to also focus on the huge opportunity open to hospitality and other industries throughout areas of the Middle East. This broader market is one of huge growth and potential for all sorts of hotel product and the pipeline for new developments is massive.

Understanding where the opportunities lie is important, and whether demand is continuing to outstrip supply in some of the most prolific hospitality markets including Saudi Arabia and Dubai is discussed by our leading experts in this briefing. Including video clips from:

  • Elizabeth Winkle, Managing Director of STR Global on the incredible pipeline in the Middle East
  • Bob Loewen, COO of Wyndham Hotel Group on bringing their brands to the Middle East
  • Christopher Knable, COO of Katara Hospitality on the opportunity the World Cup brings for hospitality
  • And Darroch Crawford, Managing Director of Premier Inn Hotels LLC on the market demands in Dubai
 


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Video clips produced by ybc.hpgcms.wpengine.com for the Hospitality Channel, including interviews from industry conferences such as the IHIF conference as well as specific Hospitality Channel shoots.

Briefing: ingredients for deal making

Many components of what makes a great deal in hospitality haven’t changed in many, many years, however, there is an a continual evolvement of how deals can be struck and what is need to get that agreement over the final few hurdles.

Understanding the risk and what to consider when investing in new areas is key and many believe the emphasis towards long-term contracts is very real with investors wanting to ensure steady returns rather than immediate gain.

Experts discussing deal-making this week include:

  • David Thomson, COO of JA Resorts & Hotels on the importance of a partnership
  • Christian Mole, Executive Director – Transaction Advisory Services of Ernst & Young LLP on the long-term trend
  • Rob Seabrook, Head of Hotel Transactions for Savills on the need for good cash flow
  • And Gaël Le Lay of Head of Hotel Investment, AXA Real Estate on what they look for in a good deal
 


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Video clips produced by ybc.hpgcms.wpengine.com for the Hospitality Channel, including interviews from industry conferences such as the most recent IHIF conference as well as specific Hospitality Channel shoots.

Briefing: the potential for European growth

With the slow recovery from the global economic crisis in Europe and the growth in markets in the Middle East and Asia, it is likely that European countries and cities will struggle for some time.

What Europe does have on its side is maturity and some don’t believe the doom and gloom sentiment. The secure markets of London and Paris will always remain but picking further opportunities will be a bit more of a challenge.

Experts this week discuss the difficult task for the European continent and what needs to be done to get back to pre-2007 stability. Comments this week include from:

  • Rob Seabrook, Head of Hotel Transactions for Savills on the uncertainty seen in Europe
  • Nick van Marken, Partner & Global Head for Travel, Hospitality & Leisure for Deloitte on reasons to be optimistic about Europe
  • Patrick Sanville, Director of Hotels for BNP Paribas Real Estate on the continued growth of London and Paris
  • And Thomas Page, UK Head of Hotels & Leisure for CMS on provincial rates struggling in Europe
 


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Video clips produced by ybc.hpgcms.wpengine.com for the Hospitality Channel, including interviews from industry conferences such as the most recent IHIF conference as well as specific Hospitality Channel shoots.

Briefing: Europe needs to demonstrate growth to attract investment

With the green shoots of growth being seen across the European market, many believe we are seeing early optimism for not only the hospitality sector but all industry. However, with increasing influence of alternative markets, like China and Brazil, the EU needs to showcase itself as a great place too for capital investment.

As a mature market it has many strengths and we have seen a resurgence in deal making. The long-term prospects of hospitality are paramount, but with the incessant need for short-term returns, is Europe going to be able to show strong enough growth for investors to persevere? In this briefing we hear from:

  • Arthur de Haast, Chairman – Hotels & Hospitality Group for Jones Lang LaSalle on confidence being seen in the market.
  • Josh Wyatt, Partner – Hospitality & Leisure at Patron Capital Advisors LLP on whether Europe is the most exciting place for investment.
  • Richard Candey, Senior Director – Head of Hospitality for DTZ on the resurgence in deal making across Europe
  • And Andrew Taylor, National Head of Leisure for NatWest on London being a very different market to anywhere else in Europe.
 


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Video clips produced by ybc.hpgcms.wpengine.com for the Hospitality Channel, including interviews from industry conferences such as the most recent IHIF conference as well as specific Hospitality Channel shoots.

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