India Hotel Investment Activity Recap

JLL's India's 'Hotel Investment Trends – India 2023' report showed India's hospitality sector witnessed a record $401 million worth of investment activity in 2023, a nearly fourfold rise compared to 2022. JLL said there were 22 hotel transactions last year, the largest number of assets traded in the last decade, with high-net-worth individuals and institutional investors contributing the most to transaction activity. The first quarter of calendar year 2024 has seen a significant 80% year on year rise in hotel transactions volume, reaching $78 million. In 2023, a record number of signings and openings took place, with 25,176 keys signed and 12,647 keys opened. Greenfield projects totaled 13,600 keys in 2023, up from 8,000 in 2022. They expect the strength of 2023 to continue in 2024 and JLL said there is an increasing interest in hotel development activity in tier-two cities, with 54% of the total signings taking place in those locations. About 25% of last year's overall value of transactions involved under-construction hotels in both business and leisure destinations. The upper upscale segment saw the highest number of keys changing hands, followed by the upscale, luxury and midscale segments. Management contracts represented 78% of the total number of keys but JLL said there has been a notable increase in lease and revenue share models across different tiers, comprising 4% of the total keys signed. That being said, JLL reported tier-one cities experienced the highest number of keys signed since 2020, up 31% from 2022. On the revenue side, JLL is expecting the Indian hotel industry to witness revenue growth of 7%-9% in FY2025 with spiritual tourism to drive demand.

Accor announced the opening of 22 hotels and over 6,000 rooms in Japan. This increases their footprint in the country to 46. The hotels comprised 12 Grand Mercure and 10 Mercure hotels that range in location from the northernmost prefecture of Hokkaido to the southernmost prefecture of Okinawa and are located close to local hidden gems such as Cape Zanpa in Okinawa, Asuka village in Nara, Shiroi Koibito Park in Hokkaido, and Senri Beach in Wakayama. Each hotel offers a range of guestrooms, restaurants, and wellness facilities such as onsen, saunas and swimming pools.

Accor also said their Premium, Midscale & Economy division signed six projects in the first quarter of 2024. They include the Pullman Living Bangkok Sukhumvit 16 and Pullman Residences Bangkok Sukhumvit 16 and Novotel Living Bangkok Don Muang in Thailand. In Indonesia, Accor signed the Novotel Tangerang BSD City, in South Korea they signed ibis Styles Ambassador Jeonju City Center, the Pullman Mactan Cebu Hotel & Residences in the Philippines and finally in Vietnam they signed Movenpick Vung Tau. With the exception of ibis Styles in South Korea and Novotel Tangerang in Indonesia, the others will be opening between 2026 and 2028. The Novotel is a newly built hotel and the ibis Styles will be renovated with a reopening later this year.

Lloyd's Inn Kuala Lumpur launched today, introducing a unique "Garden Oasis" in a high-rise setting, the first hotel of its kind, described as bringing a slice of Bali within an urban city. Lloyd's Inn Kuala Lumpur sits 15 stories high with 110 rooms. It is the first in the Lloyd's Inn series to be a high-rise city hotel with rooms ranging from 17 square meters to 50 square meters with a dipping pool (jacuzzi), F&B, co-working space, event & meeting spaces, and the Lloyd's Inn signature outdoor showers and bathtubs while introducing new elements like retro swings in the sky, all within a high-rise building. The hotel is located in the Imbi area with the newly opened Exchange 106 mall, the second tallest building in Malaysia just 200 meters away.

Marriott Hotels opened Perhentian Marriott Resort & Spa at Pulau Perhentian Kecil in Terengganu in Malaysia. The hotel has 200 rooms and 17 villas, located on the northwest coast of the Perhentian Kecil Island. Facilities include a 24 hour fitness center and yoga deck, swimming pools, jacuzzi, the Qi Forest Spa & Wellness, a 551 square meter grand ballroom and three restaurants called Dapur, Sekoci and Greatroom Bar and Lounge.

IHG Hotels & Resorts said they signed 24 hotel projects across its essentials and premium hotel brands in China including Holiday Inn Express, Holiday Inn and Even Hotels. The new hotels will increase the group's presence in multiple cities and tourist destinations such as Shanghai, Shenzhen, Nanjing, Kunming, Datong, Rizhao and Ningde. 19 of the signings are for the Holiday Inn Express hotels. The brand recently ventured into new markets, introducing the first IHG hotel to several regions of Greater China. Each project signed at the owner roadshow that IHG held is based on the franchise model. Presently IHG features 12 brands within the Greater China market, with over 1,200 openings or in the pipeline.

IHG also said they will open the Boko Hotel at the T-Mark Grand Hotel in Myeong-dong, Seoul. IHG is expected to complete its opening within this year, aiming for a soft opening this July. The name of the hotel has been set as Boko Seoul Myeongdong, the second Boko Hotel after Boko Gangnam in Seoul. The Boko Hotel was originally planned to be built in Pyeongtaek Gyeonggi-do but the Intercontinental brand entered instead. Boko Myeong-dong will be a conversion. The hotel has 20 floors and 576 rooms. The plan is to change the type of rooms, keeping the same amount. The hotel was sold to Gravity Asset Management by former owner Hana Alternative Asset Management for 228 billion won. The possibility of office development was originally raised but continuing as a hotel was the final decision.

Asian private equity firm Ocean Link and tourism investment firm Delonix Group plan to invest in Japan's Hotel MONday to help fuel expansion at home and in the Asia Pacific region. The equity investment gives them a stake in an operator of 24 properties in key tourist destinations in Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka under the Hotel MONday and other brands. The deal will also help to improve the chain's information technology systems and use Delonix's growing membership base and industry know-how. Ocean Link is the founding investor in Delonix. They led the privatization of Kaiyuan Hotels in 2021. Delonix operates 10 crore hotel brands including Grand New Century, Ruby and Manju, counting 1,400 hotels in operation and in its development pipeline across more than 200 cities in Asia.

The Artyzen Hotel brand from Shun Tak Group, opened the new Habitat Hengqin Zhuhai on March 28th. The hotel has 230 rooms and is located next to the Hengqin border. The property offers 10 room types and is only hundreds of meters from the Cotai Strip in Macau.