For every Hollywood star there’s a family member who keeps it real for you. Timothée Chalamet might be raking in the cash and adoration popping up shirtless in pink velvet suits, but his sister is busy taking to social media to make pointed comments about the uber rich. Whether she’s thought about the consequences come Christmas is anyone’s guess, but that’s him told.
Here in hotelland, we know we’re not the most popular asset class out there (in Europe we leave that to residential – so common) but we still think we’re pretty fascinating. If you get to know us, we’re the best of them all, tends to be our thought. All that asset appreciation AND you get to change what you like when Taylor Swift shows up. Can you do that in offices, no you cannot.
And we’re happy to bob around talking to each other and going to events where we make knowing comments about failed brands from decades past (Denizen, that’s you again) and enjoying our inside jokes about Accor’s self-driving cars, but where is Timothée Chalamet’s sister in all this?
In Germany, it turns out. This week we went to EXPO Real to chair the hotel investment panel, with many thanks to our panelists; Marc Nelson, EVP, JLL, Natalia Kolotneva, head of living and hospitality for Europe, LaSalle Investment and Ina Plunien, SVP, Cedar Capital Partners. And if you’re looking for a panel which runs itself while you field questions about the Baltics as a suitable development location on the Slido, I would recommend them as a collective.
Ahead of the panel a show of hands was asked for, to get an idea of who was already a hotel investor or, indeed, knew what a hotel was. Seven people raised their hands, out of a pretty busy room. Now, yes, this was 10am the morning after Oktoberfest closed, but people did have that bright-eyed and hopeful look they have in the first hour of a trade fair.
And they were still there at the end, although the useless moderator failed to retake the poll. The proof will be in the pudding. Did we do enough to attract more people? And was that our point? At EXPO, hotels are in a corner, with even Marriott having the kind of tiny stand you’d expect from a bath bomb supplier at the Independent Hotel Show (where we also were this week as part of Global NewDog).
The message that we delivered from the stage was that hotels are very rewarding but that hotels are hard. If you want to invest in offices, you don’t need to know how to change a water cooler. But you could probably work out how if you had to. The panel had proper operational experience, from chamber maiding up. Hotels are almost a vocation – much as we treated the NHS during covid, with rewards based around clapping. To know them is to love them, but who wants to get to know them?
An increasing number it turns out, which is fantastic news for the many support services who ride around on the sector, like so many birds on a water buffalo. Factoring in those additional layers is part of the risk of joining us, but, get it right and the rewards are many.
Should the sector be looking at an off-the-shelf model, which allows for the simplest entry-level hotel there is? This used to be owner/operator, but since the internet came along and everyone had to learn the complex ways of online distribution, there is still a requirement for specialist knowledge. ‘Participation gets returns’ is the message of hotels, but what if it wasn’t? What if it could be like…self storage? A lock and leave model?
Judging by the Slido, where people remain anonymous, this is the hope and dream of the wider real estate sector. There were multiple questions about digital-first models like Numa, where the tricky issues of teams could be sidestepped. People wanted to touch, but not get their hands dirty.
This is great news for the likes of Numa, but could it be great news for the brands, who are eager for a model where they licence a go on their signage and then walk away? Should they be rethinking their distance and offering a return to the HMAs where they, well, did everything?
With a large amount of cash chasing a small number of deals, maybe the sector doesn’t need any new people. Maybe we should trot along as we are. But wouldn’t it be fun to see where we can go next?
