Singapore Sling: The Biggest Spenders On Manchester Hotels
Singapore investors spent £91M buying Manchester hotel assets — with U.S. buyers snapping up another £54.4M — as Manchester topped the table for U.K. hotel investment outside London.
Research by Savills showed total hotel investment in Manchester of £178.5M, of which £145.5M was from overseas. Volumes in Manchester doubled compared to 2016 and were higher than any other U.K. city outside of London in 2017, 52% greater than the £117.43M seen in Edinburgh, the second highest regional city by volume.
Deal count was also up year-on-year in Manchester, Savills said, with nine hotel transactions completed in 2017 compared to six in 2016.
Dominvs Group’s £54.5M sale of the Holiday Inn Manchester City Centre to U.S.-based Starwood Capital and Westmont Hospitality’s £52.5M sale of the Lowry Hotel to Singaporean City Developments Ltd were among the most notable deals of last year.
There were 1,127 individual hotel rooms sold in Manchester last year, Savills said, marking a 32% increase on the 854 room total of 2016. At £144,560, the average price per room was 36% higher than the U.K. average (excluding London) of £106,290.
Deloitte's Manchester Crane Survey, published this week, shows that 599 hotel rooms were delivered in the city in 2017, but that a large surge in the development pipeline will add 1,052 rooms in 2018-19, with a further 3,200 rooms consented.
Data suggests that the surge in supply has slightly dented average room rates. which hover around £65 in the city centre, but has not damaged hotel occupancy figures, which remain around 79%, often peaking at weekends at 97%.
Tourism is worth £7.9B to the Greater Manchester economy and supports 94,000 jobs.
