ATLANTA — On the second day of the 2026 Hunter Hotel Investment Conference, hoteliers on stage continued some of the optimistic sentiments from the first day while zooming in on market trends they are most concerned about.
Taking the main stage were the annual "Wall Street talks" and "Main Street talks" panels that brought together investors and hotel owners to discuss their top concerns. Panelists were most focused on the hospitality industry continuing last year's slow-but-promising deals pace.
Later, hotel data experts took the spotlight to share some of the key data points that paint a picture of what's happening across the industry. For the most part, forecasts have been maintained from earlier in the year, and experts say only time will tell what the year — including the World Cup — will hold for hotel demand and performance.
Ultimately, the industry is a resilient one, as Thom Geshay, CEO and president of Davidson Hospitality, reminded everyone: "Hospitality will survive any shock, anytime. It always does."
Photo of the day
Quotes of the day
"You factor noise into the underwriting."
—Mit Shah, founder and CEO of Noble Investment Group, spoke on the "Wall Street talks" panel about the realities of underwriting hotel deals amid geopolitical headwinds.
"We still get the question about comparing it to 2019, and I just want to make this one point. Room rates compared to 2019 were up in 2025 22%. That's great, except inflation was up 25%, so in real terms, room rates are now lower than they were pre-pandemic, down 3% or so. The same math obviously holds for RevPAR, and that's the problem that you're in."
—Jan Freitag, CoStar's national director of hospitality analytics, said at the "Key statistics shaping hospitality in 2026" panel that featured several data presentations.
“I think that with the larger pressures that we're seeing... we have to be relentless in every single part of what we do. It is no longer a group strategy. It's no longer a labor strategy. It's an everything strategy. Every day. You have to attack every market segment — you have to attack every distribution channel, you have to attack every group strategy, you have to attack everything on the food, beverage side — to make sure that you look at each one of your revenue lines, each one of your businesses and your P&L as a business itself to be profitable.”
—Thom Geshay, CEO and president of Davidson Hospitality, spoke on "The performance mandate" panel about current operating and ownership conditions.
Editors' takeaways
In my takeaway from the first day of the conference, I spoke about the resounding optimism I heard from hotel industry executives. The second day was the more of the same.
Whether it was executives speaking on panels or conversations I had with eventgoers in passing, the sentiment was the same: There are certainly headwinds present, but if you take a look at the big picture, things are good.
As Azim Saju, CEO of Ark Holdings, put it during the "Main Street talks" panel: "If there was no risk, there would be no rewards."
Hotel executives are willing to bet on their strategies and philosophies, whether it's in regard to hotel development or company culture. They often say this is a cyclical business, so even in the down times they can look ahead to the future for the light at the end of the tunnel.
— Trevor Simpson, staff writer/staff editor
"When Wall Street zigs, oftentimes Main Street will zag," said Vision Hospitality CEO Mitch Patel on the "Main Street talks" panel at the Hunter Conference on Tuesday. I think that sentiment really sums up the variables at play in the hotel industry today among different stakeholders. Institutional hotel investors are still weighing their options — particularly if they're choosing where to deploy investment among asset classes other than hotels — and real estate investment trusts are still on the sidelines.
But owners from smaller Main Street firms talked a lot about "patient capital," or the idea that the decisions they make about their equity contributions and overall investment need to be based on calculated risk so the deal gets done. While the Blackstones of the world still may not be sold on betting too big on hotel real estate again, the Main Street investors are determined to seize the day this year.
— Stephanie Ricca, editorial director
Today, I wanted to dig deeper on the optimism in the industry, and for the most part, I got it. CoStar's Jan Freitag said in his presentation for the statistics panel said that last month was the best February for hotel demand on record.
However, not everything was overly optimistic. In some of my conversations and on some of the panels I sat in on, I got a healthy dose of realism. Specifically, the hotel transaction market isn't as active as the hospitality industry hoped it would be, and the World Cup, which is less than 100 days out, isn't seeming like it's going to be as big of a boon as expected either. From the owner and operator side of things, the top concerns are with the margins and the bottom line — and that's just the new normal.
— Natalie Harms, reporter