Christie & Co, the hotel real estate transaction and advisory specialist, today launches its annual Business Outlook 2023: Finding Clarity report, providing an update on key market activity, trends and challenges observed in 2022, as well as forecasts for the 2023 .
Although the first quarter of 2022 was impacted by the Omicron wave, the recovery in hotel performance in France was surprising and contradicts most post-COVID predictions which heralded a recovery in 2024, or even 2025. Indeed hotels , all segments combined, located in large cities and ski resorts, or on the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts, achieved RevPARs above 2019 levels.
The strong demand recorded in particular in the first half of the year (1,075 million euros against 978 million in 2021) was fueled by national and European travellers. It was confirmed by international incoming tourism during the summer.
Against this upward trend, investor appetite for hotels remains high, having not yet been impacted by rising interest rates, particularly for operators looking to consolidate their portfolios. This is particularly true in the Auvergne, Rhône-Alpes, Bourgogne and Franche-Comté regions, which demonstrate a real attraction for the Centre-East.
Christie & Co recorded a significant volume of investments in the medium or economic segment with 24 million euros, for 405 rooms, and 37 million euros in the high-end segment, with good sales of establishments in Arles, Sarlat, Chartres and Toulouse. In 2023, the Group expects an increase in the number of transactions, encouraged by two major events: the Rugby World Cup in 2023 and the Paris Olympic Games in 2024.
At the end of 2022, heaven and hell represented the UK hotel market well, with many hotel operators reluctant to sell and buyers taking a wait-and-see approach in anticipation of a price correction and an increase in the volume of distressed business coming to the market this year . However, we started the new year with a strong supply of new education and consulting businesses and expect a surge in activity in the coming months. The majority (60 %) of respondents who took part in a sentiment survey conducted in late 2022 indicated that they are willing to buy and/or sell in 2023, suggesting that the market will remain buoyant despite a confluence of headwinds expected to put pressure on owners and operators this year.
concludes Carine Bonnejean, Managing Director-Hotels, Christie & Co.
Christie & Co is THE hotel real estate consultancy in Europe. It accompanies its clients throughout the process on consultancy assignments (feasibility studies, market studies, performance analysis, operator research, strategic reviews, analysis of management or lease contracts, etc.), evaluation (definition of the right value market taking into account the good in its environment) and transaction (identifying the right buyers or the right products, the right price). Independent hoteliers, franchisees, institutional investors, operators, bankers, investment funds, family offices, the teams have been working alongside them since 1998 in France. Christie & Co has 5 offices in France: Aix-en-Provence, Bordeaux, Lyon, Paris and Rennes with experts who know their area well. With a presence also in the UK, Germany, Austria, Spain, the Baltics and China to cover the hotel markets of Western Europe, Central Europe, Nordic countries and Europe-Asia.