JLL On Hotel Market: Here's What You Can Expect In 2016
2015 saw the second-highest year ever for hotel transactions, hitting $85B and growing 50% from the year before. As Q4 numbers have come in, JLL's Hotels and Hospitality Group put out its Hotel Investment Outlook 2016, with predictions for the coming year's hotel market. Here are five takeaways from the report.
1) M&As and Consolidation
Hotel M&A announcements made headlines in 2015 and many of those deals, like Marriott's $12.2B acquisition of Starwood Hotels and Resorts, are set to go through in 2016.
Even with the mergers announced in 2015, the hotel industry is fragmented compared to other consumer sectors. Expect that to change in 2016, with consolidation among both operators and real estate owners.
The growth that hotel giants get through merger deals will let them capture more market share and be better able to respond to industry disruptors. (You know who you are, Airbnb.)
2) A Lot Of Cross-Border Moves
Cross-border hotel buys should keep going strong through 2016, although they won't hit 2015's massive $30B volume. The biggest chunk of activity will be from US-based private equity funds searching for yield.
PERE giants are already gearing up for overseas buys, like Invesco's just raising a $500M Asian fund. These US firms will target secondary markets across Europe and Japan.
Middle Eastern investors, despite the oil slump, are expected to continue massive spending overseas—with JLL expecting possibly the second or third highest year on record.
With global market troubles and a domestic slowdown, China's cross-border hotel investment is expected to fall dramatically from its $5B total in 2015. Still, wealthy families will continue to send money out of the country, away from the stuttering domestic economy. (Although, not if the Chinese government has its say.)
3) Benign Interest Rate Environment
Though Janet Yellen and her band of bankers at the Federal Reserve decided to raise interest rates for the first time in years last December, hotels—and real estate as a whole—are still looking at a pretty friendly rate environment for the short term.
And despite the Fed's original plan for four 2016 hikes, top economists don't expect that to come to fruition. In fact, odds of a March Fed rate hike are looking thin. These low rates bode well for hotel real estate.
4) Americas Volumes To Hit $37B
Hotel purchases in the Americas broke records in 2015, bolstered by Blackstone's $6B buyout of Strategic Hotels and Resorts. JLL expects a slight slowdown in 2016, with volume down 20% to $37B.
US investors will be retrading property they bought earlier in this cycle, capitalizing on record-high property values. REITs are expected to be net sellers, with many going private in 2016.
5) RevPAR Growth Set To Continue
RevPAR (revenue per available room) is set to grow between 4% and 5% globally in 2016, marking the seventh consecutive year of growth in mature economies.
Previous cycles have lasted as long as 10 years, so there could still be good times ahead for RevPAR and the hotel industry as a whole. Low supply and growth in leisure travel have the US looking healthy for RevPAR in the near future.
