Hotel leaders see deals market opening up

There's been much speculation of how the hotel deals market will shape up in 2026, with many vocal about hopes for more transactions through the course of the year.

Here's how executives of publicly traded companies felt about the potential for deals — along with recently agreed to or closed ones — during the most recent earnings season.

“So, are there other opportunities to maximize value within the portfolio? I think there is, we'll be opportunistic. The buyer pool for these type of assets is, I think, a lot deeper than people realize. There are a lot of sovereigns out there who are very interested in luxury hotels. There are high-net worth individuals who are interested in luxury properties as well. And there are a couple of big private equity firms that have a lot of capital that have been sitting on the sidelines waiting for the inflection point to jump back into the market. And we're hopeful that this is the inflection point that we can prove out that there is value here, value to be created, and we're certainly hopeful that we're going to get the read through and see some multiple expansion as a result of not only this decision, but all the capital allocation decisions that we've made over the last nine years."

“What you've seen is the market is becoming certainly more constructive. You've been reading about more trades, especially the bid for luxury. I think a number of the trades that have been announced recently have also skewed to much larger transactions. So, I think that's a trend that you're going to continue to see, and part of that is the debt markets and the cost and availability of debt continues to improve.

“Brokers are certainly more optimistic. Buyer debt seems to be improving. There's a lot of equity capital out there looking for opportunities. But as we've talked about for the last 18 months, they're looking for conviction. And what does that mean? That basically means growth. And as we all know, capital follows performance.

“So, I think everybody is kind of waiting to see if the setup that we've set out for 2026 kind of comes to fruition, you'll continue to see momentum as it relates to the transaction and trades in the market. And I think you'll continue to see us be engaged and be heavy participants in the market as well.”

“I think we're more inclined to be sellers at this time. And I just think the reason for the neutrality on acquisitions is that right now, our shares look to be a better investment than the options that we see out there. I think a lot of the deals that are coming to the market, and this is very early on and in the last, say, two to three weeks, they tend to skew toward very large luxury assets.

“So, from a ticket price and size and pricing. It's just — that doesn't necessarily align with what we chase. But I think it’s a type of asset that's going to end up setting some favorable comparisons in the marketplace, and I think begin to provide the market with some visibility on where asset prices are.”

"While the transaction market has been quiet the last couple of years, we are clearly seeing some incremental activity, and we are looking for ways to thoughtfully demonstrate the value of our portfolio. In the meantime, we are focused on delivering profitability growth from operations and realizing the benefits of our investment projects."

"From a capital allocation perspective, we continue to execute on our disciplined capital recycling strategy during the fourth quarter, closing on the sale of two noncore hotels, the 107-room Courtyard Amarillo Downtown, which was owned in our joint venture with GIC and the wholly owned 123-room Courtyard Kansas City Country Club Plaza. These dispositions generated aggregate gross proceeds of $39 million, reflecting a blended yield of 4.3% based on trailing 12-month net operating income after consideration of approximately $10 million of foregone near-term capital expenditures.

"In addition, last week, we closed on the sale of the 122-room Hilton Garden Inn in Longview, Texas, another noncore asset owned in our GIC joint venture. The $12.3 million sale price represented a 6.7% capitalization rate based on the estimated trailing 12-month net operating income after consideration of approximately $2.6 million of foregone near-term capital expenditures. These 3 assets had a blended RevPAR of $89, a nearly 30% discount to the current pro forma portfolio.

"Since 2023, we have sold 13 noncore hotels, generating approximately $200 million of gross proceeds and eliminating nearly $60 million of anticipated capital expenditures at an approximate 4.6% net operating income capitalization rate. These sales reflect our disciplined approach to monetizing lower growth, capital-intensive assets and redeploying proceeds to enhance liquidity, reduce leverage, and support higher return uses across the portfolio."

"On December 30th, we sold the remaining 14 hotels in the Playa portfolio to Tortuga Resorts for approximately $2 billion and entered into long-term management agreements for 13 of those properties. This transaction strengthens our position as the global leader in luxury all-inclusive offerings and is another example of delivering on our commitments and emerging with a value accretive, asset-light platform.

"During the quarter, we also completed the sale of three Alua properties in Spain, which we acquired in late 2024. As part of this transaction, we entered into long-term management agreements, and the new owner plans to invest additional capital into those properties. We continue to make progress on the sale of additional owned properties, and we currently have three hotels under purchase and sale agreements. We expect to close these transactions in the second quarter of 2026 subject to certain closing conditions, and we will provide further updates as these transactions progress.

"We are also evaluating opportunities to sell additional assets beyond those assets already under contract. Since announcing our first asset sell-down commitment in 2017, we have realized over $5.7 billion of real estate disposition proceeds at an average multiple of 15 times, and we've invested approximately $4.4 billion into asset-light platforms at a blended multiple of less than 10 times. We've returned $4.8 billion to shareholders over this period of time, proving that we can return significant capital to shareholders while also investing in growth that creates long-term value."

"I think there's some more product out there than what we've seen over the last few years. Certainly, the broker community seems to be a little bit more optimistic going into this year. Now, brokers are usually optimistic, but so far it does seem like there's a bit more product out there, and there could be some more opportunities out there. We've been very active on the share repurchase side. Just felt like there has been over the last few years a pretty big gap between where we could essentially acquire our own assets versus what external growth opportunities were out there. So, to the extent that that starts narrowing, then it becomes clearly more interesting for us to to dig a little bit deeper and harder into those opportunities that are out there. So, clearly, over the next few years, we'd like to see some some external growth opportunities come to fruition, and that's going to be really driven by the opportunity set, the pricing and certainly where our own shares are valued."

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