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Finance

Press Release

CapitaLand Ascott Trust fully acquires student accommodation property Standard at Columbia to boost income resilience

CapitaLand Ascott Trust (CLAS) has acquired the remaining 10% stake in Standard at Columbia, a freehold student accommodation property in South Carolina, United States of America (USA). The earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) yield on total development cost is expected to be approximately 7%. This is higher than the 6.2% EBITDA yield that was projected in 2021 on the basis that the property has achieved stable performance. The acquisition is funded by proceeds from CLAS’ earlier divestments.

The Ascott Limited
Columbia, South Carolina, United States
Opinion Article

A Closer Look at Hotel Interest Rates: Past and Future May 30, 2024

Over the past couple of months, it has become increasingly clear that interest rates for hotel financing, and just about everything else, may stay higher for longer. As markets adjust to this expectation, many investors are realizing that they may not be able to delay deals until rates drop back down to so-called “normal” levels. There is mounting pressure for financing decisions that will need to be made in the coming months. In this article, we have compiled and analyzed historical hotel interest rate data, as well as indications from the Federal Open Markets Committee (FOMC or “Fed”) on the anticipated direction of future interest rates, to help provide some context for the past, present, and future of the hotel financing market.

Daniel McCoy
By Daniel McCoy, Managing Director, HVS
United States
Press Release

Ernest N. Morial New Orleans Exhibition Hall Authority Takes Steps to Develop a Headquarters Hotel

The Ernest N. Morial New Orleans Exhibition Hall Authority (the Authority) has approved two resolutions critical to moving forward with the development of a 1,000-room headquarters hotel for the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center (NOENMCC). In addition to accepting a formal letter of intent (LOI) with Omni Hotels & Resorts (Omni) to own and operate the headquarters hotel, today the Authority voted to approve a purchase and sale agreement for property at Convention Center Boulevard and Andrew Higgins Boulevard. The site, currently operated as the Sugar Mill event venue, is immediately across the street from the Convention Center and is the preferred site for the new headquarters hotel.

Omni
New Orleans, Louisiana, United States
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Where there are no gates, there are no gatekeepers

We're looking at the finger and not at the moon. As the EC focuses on writing norms, the web for which these norms are written no longer exists. We are witnessing an evolution towards what I like to call a post-search era. AI assistants (be they conversational tools such as ChatGPT/Claude or physical devices such as Rabbit's R1) will one day become the primary (if not the only) interfaces for web access. These models could evolve into primary aggregators and distributors of information, particularly in over-fragmented industries such as ours.

Simone Puorto
View by Simone Puorto, Head of Emerging Trends and Strategic Innovation, Hospitality Net
Max Starkov
By Max Starkov
Expert Views (13)
Thibault Catala
Thibault Catala, Founder and Managing Director, Catala Consulting

I believe this is a positive step towards fair competition and gives hotels the freedom to create better pricing strategies overall. Savvy hoteliers will definitely drive stronger performance thanks to this, for the others this won't change much :) Now, let's not always blame the OTA for everything, if we really look at the NetRevPAR per channel, most hotels will be surprised to see that the NetRevPAR of the OTA is sometimes the highest one!

Timothy Wiersma
Timothy Wiersma, Principal | Revenue Generation, Revenue Generation LLC

Great subject to discuss. The industry for too long has been a slave to parity agreements, and now the EC has created some breathing room for hoteliers to develop their own strategies as it relates to OTA's. It was almost like the tail was wagging the dog from a digital strategy and pricing perspective.

Mark Fancourt
Mark Fancourt, Co-Founder & Principal Consultant, TRAVHOTECH

Good. High time. Most customers are price driven and want to get the best quality product at the best price. Where else should that be found, but with the producer directly? Put simply, there is no environment where it should be acceptable that the producer and provider of a product is forced to offer the same price to a third party that does not produce the product, and expects to profit from the same.

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Opinion Article

Hotel Cap Rates: Adjusting to a New Reality

A capitalization rate (“cap rate”) is a shorthand expression of a given investment’s return and represents the weighted average return to the debt and equity positions. As detailed in this article, hotel cap rates are higher than they’ve been in recent years and are unlikely to decline anytime soon.

Erich Baum
By Erich Baum, Senior Vice President, HVS
Press Release

Hotel Financials: Key Changes in USALI 12th Edition

The 12th revised edition of the Uniform System of Accounts for the Lodging Industry (USALI) fundamentally enhances the transparency of financial and operational aspects in the hospitality industry. To quote Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's iconic character Sherlock Holmes, “It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.”

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AI will not replace human Revenue Leaders anytime soon

I do not anticipate the complete demise of human Revenue strategists any time soon. The day to day activities of a revenue manager may change and many entry-level positions will be eliminated.  How this trend of  not creating a pipeline of new Revenue Leaders is going to impact the industry 10-20 years from now, is material for another discussion.

Harald Bindeus
View by Harald Bindeus, Commercial Leader | Marketing, Revenue Management, Sales |, Global Hotel Revenue Solutions
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From Revenue Manager to Commercial Strategist

Six years ago I attended the Revenue Forum in Brussels. It was my very first industry event. I remember the potential threat posed by Business Intelligence to Revenue Managers was a hot topic. Back then Revenue Managers spent a fair share of their time manually compiling data from various sources into a single, giant, Excel sheet that could be analysised for optimisation. As BI solutions became more widespread, some revenue managers feared that their roles would become redundant. If they weren't going to be the masters of the giant Excel, what were they going to do?

Niki Van den Broeck
View by Niki Van den Broeck, Product Manager, Lighthouse
Fabian Bartnick
By Fabian Bartnick
Expert Views (17)
Vassilis Syropoulos
Vassilis Syropoulos, Founder & CEO, Juyo Analytics

It depends. Smaller less complex hotels will be the first ones where there is no need for a revenue manager. Pricing and Inventory Management can be indeed fully automated. The role of a revenue manager already has evolved / needs to evolve to focus more on-demand generation.

Thibault Catala
Thibault Catala, Founder and Managing Director, Catala Consulting

Currently, doing research on the topic and most of the experts I talked to indeed think that the position of Revenue Manager will disappear in the next 5 years (replaced by AI tools and/or integrated with other hotel functions such as Commercial).

Pablo Torres
Pablo Torres, Director, Torres Hospitality Consulting

First thing I've done - of course- is ask Chat GPT. AI itself "believes" that it will not fully replace humans as It can not match human insight and intuition or adaptability to crisis scenarios, neither has interpersonal and leadership skills.

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