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When it comes to hotels, asset managers hold the key to ensuring the best possible future. Jonathan Humphries, head of international hotel development and asset management specialisation at Glion Institute of Higher Education, discusses the importance of hospitality asset managers and their role in the hospitality industry.
ho truly holds the influence in a hotel? The general manager? The brand that has its name above the door? The owner of the bricks and mortar real estate? In my view, the hero of the story and the one person with the means to bring all those differing – and sometimes competing – interests round the table, is the asset manager. For anyone who is unfamiliar with the role, the asset manager is the guardian of financial investment in a hotel or other hospitality-related property. This person is responsible for ensuring that the right choices are made in order to maximise the value of the asset, at every stage of the cycle from initial purchase to eventual disposal. And this matters more than ever, especially when placed in the context of an explosion of interest in hotels as a commercial real estate asset class. Once seen as the playground of the specialists, hotels have increasingly been acquired by insurance companies, pension funds, sovereign wealth managers, family offices and pretty much every other type of professional investor.
W Hotel Management International /
www.hmi-online.com
The numbers are definitely eye-catching. In Europe alone, hotel investment transactions grew from €6.5bn in 2010 to a record high of €27.1bn in 2019 – the previous full pre-pandemic year according to HVS. And though the Covid-19 effect has since forced transaction volumes lower, the overall outlook remains strong. For example, in 2021 advisors Cushman & Wakefield published research in which over a third of major hotel investors said they wanted more European hotels in their property portfolios, with only 21% planning to scale down their investment activity.
New money, new game
This flood of new money into hotel real estate has been a game-changer for asset managers. Not only has it increased demand for professionals with this skill set, but it has also given much greater visibility to the importance of the role and its unique position as the ‘glue’ that holds the asset management strategy together. As if that was not enough, the shock of the pandemic has left the
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