10minhotel.com

HONG KONG – Hong Kong's hotel market has reached a critical inflection point, according to JLL's (NYSE: JLL ) latest analysis, undergoing a significant transaction characterized by high investor interest and limited supply. As estimates of visitor arrivals are projected to recover toward 53.8 million in 2026 amid fundamental shifts in demand composition, capital markets repricing, and Hong Kong's evolving role within the Greater Bay Area, the special administrative region is poised for a unique recovery, says JLL. According to JLL and Bird & Bird’s Hong Kong Investment Guide, the market recovery represents far more than a simple return to pre-2019 conditions. Performance divergence between assets is widening significantly, creating a market of contrasts that favours owners and investors with operational flexibility and strategic capital deployment capabilities. Furthermore, Hong Kong's strategic focus on major events, supported by new infrastructure including Kai Tak Sports Park, is expected to create periodic demand spikes that can support stronger rate compression during peak event windows. Returns are increasingly shaped by asset selection, capital strategy, and execution capability rather than market-wide recovery alone. For the right capital with operational flexibility and strategic vision, Hong Kong's hotel market presents selective opportunities in a fundamentally transformed landscape. Cleavon Tan, Senior Vice President, Advisory & Asset Management, Hotels & Hospitality, Asia Pacific, JLL's Hotels & Hospitality Group Transaction activity recovered in 2025 to approximately $790 million across fifteen deals, according to JLL analysis, marking improvement from cyclical lows while remaining below historic peak levels. Buyer composition has shifted toward cash-rich local and regional capital, including mainland Chinese investors and owner-operators seeking strategic footholds rather than purely financial investments. This has driven increased interest in alternative transaction structures such as long-term leases and joint ventures. JLL data reaffirms prime assets in core urban districts are demonstrating resilience, supported by constrained supply and strong demand from higher-yield segments including long-haul travellers, MICE, and premium regional visitors. Luxury and upscale properties have notably outperformed on a relative basis, benefiting from stronger pricing power and exposure to these high-value demand segments. However, older or unfavorably positioned properties face mounting pressure from changing visitor behaviour, rising operational costs, and competition from alternative uses. These market dynamics are creating selective opportunities for sophisticated investors, particularly in repositioning, repurposing, and strategic conversion strategies. According to JLL, a significant trend has emerged over the past five years, with approximately $2.2 billion of hotel transaction volume linked to conversion or alternative-use strategies. These conversions—including student accommodation, co-living, and other long-stay formats—have created an additional liquidity channel for older or operationally challenged assets, demonstrating the inherent flexibility of hotel real estate in Hong Kong. Andrew MacGeoch, Partner and APAC Co-Head of Bird & Bird's Hotels, Hospitality & Leisure Group, adds: "We have seen a very significant interest in hotel acquisitions in the HKSAR in the last 12 months whether for conversion to student accommodation or to remain as hotels. There have also been important legal changes such as the Extension of Government Leases Ordinance and also, in July

At the EHL HumanX Summit in Lausanne, which he helped organise, Simone Puorto sat down with Andrea Monti, CEO of EHL Next. Monti has spent more than twenty-five years across corporate business and start-ups, and now runs EHL's innovation arm. He is interested in two things above all, where hospitality's next ideas will come from, and whether the industry is measuring anything that matters. His answers to both were blunt. The full conversation is available to watch below. Innovation comes from outside the industry Monti's starting belief is that hospitality's real innovation will come from outside hospitality. EHL trains students in human competencies that travel well, into retail, luxury, wellbeing, private banking, even management consulting, any field where the human-to-human relationship matters. He wants that exchange to run both ways. Treated as an open innovation platform, EHL can trade ideas, behaviours and business models with other industries, and lift the rate of new ideas worth testing. Simone reached for The Wisdom of Crowds and the point that a room full of experts will eventually agree on everything, so real innovation needs an outsider in the room. Monti runs his programme on that logic, with workshops, challenges and design sprints that bring people from different industries together to share what they need and to see which ideas can be put into practice. Why the industry stops looking If outside ideas are so useful, why do so few operators go looking for them? Monti's answer is partly comfort. Many destinations are still full. When a hotel in Paris, Milan, Berlin or Shanghai runs at eighty-five or ninety percent occupancy every weekend, there is little reason to test something different. Real change tends to come from a crisis, from regulation, or from the lucky few entrepreneurs with the time, the money or the spare venues to experiment in. He sees the most interesting experiments where industries converge, between wellness, hospitality, nutrition and sport. The rest of the time, he said, the industry is reactive, running behind schedule to win the next guest. Innovation becomes a word people use rather than something they do. Measuring the wrong things This is the part Monti cares about most. Asked whether hospitality measures the wrong things, he answered with a flat yes. The industry still runs on industrial, financial metrics, ADR and RevPAR chief among them. Guest experience does not show up in those numbers. You feel it as a guest, and the business can only reach for proxies, the reviews and NPS scores that gesture at it after the fact. What he wants measured is impact, the value a venue creates not only for the guest but for its workforce, its community and its wider stakeholders. Other fields are well ahead here. Impact investment, energy and sustainable agriculture already work with measures like social ROI and Theory of Change. Hospitality, by his reckoning, is some way behind, though a few people, some of them at the summit, are starting to close the gap. Part of the

Eugene’s hotel market has experienced strong growth in recent years and continues to benefit from significant investment in the city. Eugene has emerged as a leading Pacific Northwest travel destination, and hotel demand benefits from its mix of demand generators that have resulted in increased commercial demand and a strong tourism industry. Growth Drivers Behind Eugene’s Rising Visitation Eugene has become one of Oregon’s fastest growing travel destinations through a mix of university development and events, popular Willamette Valley outdoor recreation, and a growing technology sector. Home to the historic University of Oregon , the city attracts visitors year-round for collegiate sports, cultural events, and academic conferences. In recent years, investments have provided a significant boost to Eugene’s economy and provided hotels and other services with strong levels of demand. The largest recent development is the construction of the $1-billion Phil and Penny Knight Campus for Accelerating Scientific Impact , which has helped fuel new business travel and economic growth. Other investments include the university’s startup program and its research expenditures, which totaled approximately $125 million in 2024/25 . A growing cluster of technology companies has further diversified the local economy, supporting steady hotel demand and year-round visitation. The area is currently home to many technology companies, including Pipeworks Studios , Zynga , and IDX Broker , as well as specialized medical facilities, such as the Slocum Center for Orthopedics & Sports Medicine . In total, over 70 tech companies have moved to Eugene in the past decade. Additional key technology companies have announced plans to establish or expand facilities in Eugene in the near term, such as Amazon , Penderia Technologies , and Ksana Health . Other major technology developments include new micro-LED manufacturing initiatives, growth in various robotics companies, and specialized programs at the University of Oregon that focus on high-performance computing, software development, and hardware manufacturing. This technology growth in the market has resulted in significant improvements for Eugene hotel metrics in recent years. According to Travel Lane County representatives, hotel room-night revenue in the market has increased by roughly 40% since 2016 as a result of strong occupancy levels and rising guestroom rates. A large portion of this growth, particularly in the shoulder seasons and at the market’s extended-stay hotels, is attributed to the technology industry. Travel Growth and Rising Visitor Spending in Lane County Tourism to Eugene is especially popular during the summer and fall months, when warm weather and outdoor activities draw visitors to the Willamette Valley. Recent reporting shows that the Lane County region, including Eugene, recorded more than 3.5 million overnight stays in 2025 . This growth is particularly notable in the visitor spending reported by Travel Oregon , as shown in the chart below. Roughly 80% of the travel spending within the county occurs in the Eugene-Springfield market, with visitors staying in hotels, motels, and short-term rentals accounting for 65% of overnight visitor spending in the county. Furthermore, of the nearly $1.4 billion spent by travelers in the region in 2025,

HVS was proud to sponsor NYU IHIF this year. Following several months of surprisingly strong RevPAR and revenue growth, the mood was much improved from ALIS. Conversations around AI, branded residential, and renovations and conversions were most prevalent. Transaction activity is lagging the market recovery, but indications are that the buyer/seller gap is narrowing. Consumer spending and travel have continued and are proving to be resilient, despite factors such as inflation, the duration of peace talks between the U.S. and Iran, and the impact of oil prices on transportation and consumer goods. Travel among the middle class is gaining traction, and consumers may choose to drive rather than to fly to domestic destinations when pricing is a major factor. Alternatively, there is little-to-no price resistance in luxury travel, which has contributed to substantial RevPAR growth despite the macroeconomic dynamics. There is significant investment interest in the luxury segment currently, as it has continuously proven to be resilient amid geopolitical factors, rising construction costs, and growing supply costs. Capital interest has remained stronger in this caliber of asset. Geopolitical factors are creating short-term uncertainty, which is delaying the deployment of capital in the hotel industry. However, the credit market (e.g., CMBS) is improving a little, facilitating the completion of transactions. It is important to note that the bid-ask spread is gradually narrowing, depending on the hotel product type and opportunities. Capital stacks are requiring more creativity than ever before. As interest rates remain stagnant and uncertainty around the economy prevails, both equity and debt investors are playing it safe, and a more diverse capital stack is needed to push deals across the finish line. Foreign market interest remains strong; less red tape in countries like China and India provides stronger opportunities for development, and with an expanding middle class, these countries remain an attractive option for future projects. In fact, major hotel brands like Hyatt and IHG have the majority of their current development pipeline in the Asian markets. Brand Conversions Can Enhance Returns If Done Right In the brand conversion space, understanding the market/demand mix is crucial in determining the right brand for an asset. Is the market more reliant on midweek commercial demand driven by business travelers using brand loyalty points or seeking a higher end hotel product? Will the brand conversion truly help the hotel capture greater market share in a segment that it currently lacks because of the outdated product offering? These questions are crucial for ownership and brand representatives to answer when selecting the right affiliation for a property. During the rebranding process, the hotel owner/operator and brand representatives should establish a plan that provides a reasonable timetable for the conversion renovations and considers anticipated business disruptions. They should identify the ramp-up time that would be required and incorporate that into the forecast/pro forma. It’s also important to be thoughtful and realistic about the scope of work and cost that would be required to elevate the guest experience and enhance the hotel product to ensure upselling

Alexandria VA — Business travel within and to the United States continues to be a major engine powering the nation’s economy and growth, generating $623.8 billion in total gross domestic product (GDP) impact as related travel spending reached $538.5 billion , according to a new study released today by the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA). Based on comprehensive analysis of 2024 data, the report reveals the far-reaching impact of business travel across industries, employment, public finances and regional economies across all 50 states, including accounting for 2.1% of the entire U.S. economy (GDP) and $148.6 billion in U.S. tax revenue . It supports 6.7 million jobs nationwide and is also linked to 1 in every 24 U.S. jobs . The new findings also show that nearly 488 million business trips were taken across the U.S. in 2024, underscoring the scale and reach of business travel activity to, within and across U.S. states. Business travel delivers value that reaches well beyond companies and travelers ─ it’s also about direct economic impact in communities across the country. From supporting millions of jobs to funding public services, the data shows how deeply business travel is connected to U.S. economic resilience, growth and competitiveness. Suzanne Neufang, CEO of GBTA U.S. Business Travel Reaches Record Highs, Powers Economic Growth Business travel spending in U.S. destinations reached a record $538.5 billion in 2024 (up from $501.1 billion, or 7.5%, since 2023) and includes: $270.0 billion from domestic travel $50.7 billion from international inbound travel $217.8 billion from meetings and events delivery and management The data also underscores the industry’s strong multiplier effect across the U.S. economy, revealing that each dollar invested in business travel in 2024 generated $1.16 in GDP . Business travel is inherently location-focused, so increased travel spending translates directly into domestic growth, jobs and tax revenue at those locations. A Major Driver of Jobs, Wages and Economic Opportunity Across the U.S. In 2024, business travel supported 6.7 million jobs across the U.S. , spanning direct employment in travel-related sectors, supply chain roles, and jobs supported through re-spending of wages. Altogether, 1 in every 24 U.S. jobs was linked to business travel activity , reinforcing its importance as a pillar of the American workforce, including: 3.7 million direct jobs (e.g., travel-related industries) 1.2 million indirect jobs (e.g., related supply chains) 1.8 million induced jobs (e.g., the re-spending of wages) Additionally, in 2024 the sector also generated $366.4 billion in wages , supporting U.S. workers across hospitality, transportation, professional services sectors and beyond. Business Travel as a Significant Contributor to Public Revenue Business travel remains a substantial source of government funding, contributing $148.6 billion in total tax revenues in 2024, including: $76.9 billion in federal taxes $71.7 billion in state and local taxes On average, each business trip generated approximately $290 in tax revenue , highlighting the industry’s direct value to public services and government revenue. Notably, the study finds that without business travel, U.S. households would need to contribute an additional $1,102 annually to

Most organizations do not have a strategy problem. They have a speed problem. Good ideas are everywhere. Smart people are in the room. Data is available. Dashboards are polished. Meetings are full. Yet revenue slows. Not because the team lacks capability. Because decisions take too long. A pricing approval sits for five days. A hiring decision drags for three weeks. A key client proposal waits for six signatures. A weak performer stays for six months because no one wants the discomfort of acting. And slowly, silently, the business pays the price. Lost deals. Lost trust. Lost momentum. Leadership is often judged by vision. In reality, leadership is exposed by decision velocity. Because slow decisions create expensive organizations. Fast decisions create accountable ones. The modern leadership KPI is not how much you know. It is how quickly you can decide what matters. And how clearly your team can move because of it. The Hidden Tax of Slow Leadership Most leaders underestimate the financial cost of indecision. They measure visible expenses. They ignore invisible ones. Let me put it simply. Every delayed decision creates a tax. I call this the Delay Tax Framework . It shows up in four places: 1. Revenue Delay A corporate account waits for pricing approval. By the time approval comes, the client has signed elsewhere. The team says, "We lost on price." Usually, we lost on speed. 2. Talent Drain Top performers do not leave because of one bad day. They leave after months of watching avoidable confusion. Strong people lose faith in slow systems. Silence is often the first resignation letter. 3. Margin Erosion Late decisions force reactive discounting. When leaders delay action, teams compensate with price cuts. Urgency destroys margin. 4. Trust Decay When teams stop believing leadership will decide, they stop escalating important issues. That is dangerous. Because silence looks like stability — until performance drops. This is where most businesses bleed quietly. Not from one catastrophic mistake. From hundreds of delayed small ones. A Lesson from Hospitality Sales Hospitality teaches this brutally. You cannot hide behind quarterly theory when room nights, corporate contracts, and group business move in real time. In 20 years of working in different hotel brands, one truth stayed consistent: Speed wins. A delayed response to a major group inquiry can mean losing an entire season of revenue. A slow decision on pricing during high-demand periods can destroy ADR. An approval loop that takes four days can cost millions over a year. In hotel commercial leadership, indecision is visible fast. That is why strong sales leaders become strong operators. Because they learn quickly: Revenue follows clarity. And clarity requires timely decisions. Not perfect ones. Timely ones. The 3D Rule for Faster Decisions Not every decision deserves urgency. But every decision deserves ownership. This is the framework I use: Decide Who owns the final call? Not who attends the meeting. Who decides? If ownership is unclear, delay is guaranteed. Consensus is useful. But accountability must have a name. Deadline By when?

Luxury hospitality tends to come in small packages. To put a number to this, Relais & Châteaux’s renowned luxury properties across North America average around 40 rooms, with few exceeding 70. For hotels of this size, it’s manageable (though never simple or easy) to give every guest the intimate attention that should lie at the heart of the luxury experience. A general manager can be visible. Staff become familiar faces, and guests become familiar faces as well, with stories known in detail by the people serving them. So what happens when the operation is larger? How do you maintain standards when a property operates at the scale of a village or small town? I had to figure this out in a hurry. In April 2021, I took on the responsibility as president and CEO of The Boca Raton in South Florida, a 1,000+-room property, with a specific remit from ownership: elevate the resort to a Forbes Five-Star level and capture full STR share against its established competitors. The deadline was The Boca Raton’s 100th anniversary in 2026—an aggressive timetable, particularly given that a major transformation, with a cost in the hundred millions, was already underway. We were about to find out if luxury could be delivered at that size without losing what makes it luxury in the first place: recognition, familiarity, and a sense that the hotel knows and anticipates the guest. Divide and Delight It was clear to me when I took the job that delivering luxury at this scale would require us to subdivide, conceptually and operationally. With ownership’s approval, I proposed dividing the campus into five distinct hotels under The Boca Raton’s umbrella, each with its own leadership structure, service rhythm, and guest profile. If we succeeded, the resort would operate on a large scale, but the guest would never experience it that way. These “hotels within a hotel” range from 60 to 300 rooms—large enough to run operationally, small enough to feel welcoming, even cozy. I think of these as pockets of connection, environments where guests are recognized and where associates have the opportunity to know the people they are serving. The hotels are segmented as follows: Beach Club emphasizes a relaxed pace and informal interaction—what we describe as modern “barefoot elegance”—for guests seeking an unpretentious oceanfront stay. Cloister serves primarily corporate and group travelers, with nearly 300 rooms and direct access to extensive meeting space within architect Addison Mizner’s original 1926 design. Yacht Club provides an all-suites, adults-only, particularly private experience with the highest level of individual attention. Tower serves families and multigenerational travelers who often require flexibility and accessibility. Bungalows offer residential-style accommodations for longer stays, with a distinct architectural and experiential feel, along the lines of a Florida version of a stay in Santa Barbara. Each hotel has its own personality and arrival experience while delivering the same core service standards and full access to the amenities of the 200-acre private Club and resort. When a guest needs something, whether routine or in

Another day, another AI post in hospitality. I know. I know. Every week there seems to be a new acronym, a new framework, or a new vendor promising to unlock visibility in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, or Google’s AI Mode. Lately, the buzzword of choice has been GEO, or Generative Engine Optimization. According to the sales pitches, all you need is the right markup, a special file, or a secret optimization package and suddenly your hotel becomes the answer whenever travelers ask AI for recommendations. There is just one problem. Most of it doesn’t work. In fact, Google’s own documentation effectively dismantles many of the tactics currently being sold as “AI SEO.” The reality is much less exciting. And much more important. AI Doesn’t Need More Tricks. It Needs Better Data. The biggest misconception about AI search is that these systems somehow operate independently from the broader web. They don’t. Modern AI search experiences rely heavily on Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), which means they pull information from trusted sources across the internet, synthesize it, and generate a response grounded in real-world data. When someone asks: “Find me a quiet boutique hotel in Miami that is pet friendly, has fast Wi-Fi, and offers EV charging.” The AI doesn’t magically know the answer. Instead, it launches multiple searches simultaneously, evaluating hotel descriptions, amenity data, guest reviews, mapping information, and countless other signals to determine which properties consistently match the request. The recommendation is not based on a clever prompt. It is based on confidence. And confidence comes from consistency. AI does not reward the loudest source. It rewards the most trusted consensus. Where Hotels Get Filtered Out This is where things become problematic for many hospitality brands. Imagine your website says your pool is open. Your Google Business Profile says it is temporarily closed. An OTA lists different pet restrictions than your own website. Guest reviews mention ongoing construction that your marketing content never references. None of these discrepancies may seem significant individually. Collectively, however, they erode trust. The AI sees conflicting signals and becomes less confident in the information. When confidence drops, visibility drops. The model simply recommends a property whose information appears more reliable. Not necessarily better. Just more trustworthy. The AI SEO Myths Worth Ignoring Google has been remarkably clear about several tactics currently being marketed to businesses. Among them: • Special llms.txt files do not create AI visibility. • Artificial content chunking is unnecessary. • Purchased mentions and manufactured authority signals are increasingly easy to detect. • Commodity content copied from everywhere else offers little value. Instead, AI systems appear to favor authentic, verifiable information, unique operational details, original photography, and genuine guest sentiment. In other words, the same things travelers trust. Discovery. Decision. Arrival. This is why I believe hospitality leaders should stop thinking about AI as a marketing challenge and start treating it as a governance challenge. Every guest journey now passes through three critical phases: Discovery Can AI engines confidently identify your property as relevant? Decision Can

The story out of Amsterdam wrote itself. Mews held its seventh Unfold, renamed itself an operating system, shipped five products, and named SiteMinder the distribution engine inside the new Mews Channel Manager. Principal and supplier. Mews chose, SiteMinder was chosen, and the coverage ran accordingly. Read it the other way. The company that gained the most from that stage was the one in the smaller type. SiteMinder — a public company the market had quietly repriced as a maturing software vendor — used the loudest launch of the hospitality-tech year, someone else's launch, to debut a bet on becoming something larger than any operating system built on top of it. Why the reframing was forced Look at the business and nothing forces it. SiteMinder's revenue grew about 25% in the most recent half to A$131 million, recurring revenue is up 27%, the company turned profitable last year, and it added 2,900 hotels in six months to reach 53,000. What hasn't recovered is the share price. The stock is down roughly 48% over the past year while the broader market rose, and it still trades below the 2021 float that raised A$627 million. Market value sits near A$2 billion. That gap — strong operations, weak stock — is the strategic problem. The market has decided SiteMinder is a good application, and applications carry application multiples. More of the same earns more of the same. The re-rating it wants doesn't arrive by selling channel management to a few thousand more hotels a year. SiteMinder Powered is a bet on the multiple On June 1, the company launched it: a model that lets selected platforms embed SiteMinder's distribution engine directly inside their own software, with Mews as the inaugural partner. The same connectivity, demand, and pricing tools SiteMinder sells under its own name now ship inside someone else's product. A destination is something hotels log into. Infrastructure is something other companies build on and never think about. SiteMinder knows the difference from the buying side — it runs its own payments on Stripe, building its flows on Stripe's engine instead of routing its hotels to Stripe. It wants to be the Stripe of hotel distribution: the engine inside everyone else's product. For the hotelier, almost nothing changes. Daily rate and availability work already happened inside Mews; the channel setup that still runs through SiteMinder's screens will, for now, sit behind Mews branding. That the interface barely changes is the signal worth reading. SiteMinder isn't selling hotels a better screen. It's selling Mews an engine. Applications fragment. Infrastructure consolidates There can be many hotel operating systems — Mews, Apaleo, Cloudbeds, each fighting to be the one a property runs on. There tends to be far less room at the layer beneath. If SiteMinder's bet works, it sits inside several of those competing systems at once, the shared rail they all rent, earning on the transaction no matter which brand wins the floor above. It doesn't have to win the operating-system war. It has to