Best Western Hotels & Resorts

The hospitality industry is experiencing optimism and cautiousness, with hotels considering divesting assets and anticipating a potential distressed sale boom. Hoteliers are optimistic about increasing demand, but face challenges such as high-interest rates, labor shortages, and decreased construction activity. The U.S. hotel forecast shows improvements in occupancy, ADR, and RevPAR, while hotels are offering incentives to combat staffing shortages. International visitor arrivals to the U.S. continue to rise, with Mexico and Canada leading the way.

H World Group sells one-fifth of its OYO stake, generating 500% return on investment. Dalian Wanda Group seeks to offload assets amid financial challenges, including selling a Shanghai hotel and shopping malls. IHG Hotels opens new Holiday Inn property in Melbourne, featuring modern amenities and conference facilities.

Stock market performance: DJIA and lodging stocks showed mixed results, while Nasdaq and S&P 500 experienced gains. Hotel openings and renovations: New hotels and renovated properties were announced by various companies, including Wyndham Hotels, Hyatt Hotels, Candlewood Suites, and Knott's Berry Farm Hotel. Business updates: Remington Hotels promoted Keith Oltchick to Chief Development Officer, Hunter Hotel Advisors facilitated the sale of Hilton-branded assets, and Wyndham Hotels completed the refinancing of its Senior Secured Term Loan B Facility. Additionally, Mandarin Oriental revealed plans for a new hotel and residences in Athens, Greece.

The big news was a rumor with the Wall Street Journal reporting Choice Hotels is making a move to acquire Wyndham Hotels & Resorts . Truist upped their price target on Hyatt Hotels to $149 from $145. This follows H’s Investor Day and the tours of Apple Leisure Group resorts. Pebblebrook Hotel Trust gave their monthly update saying for 2Q23, overall demand and profitability trends continue to remain within expectations .

Last week BP plc completed the acquisition of TravelCenter of America Inc . Service Properties Trust received $379.3 million in cash as part of the transaction. Sonder Holdings was cut to Perform from Outperform by Oppenheimer and InterContinental Hotels Group was upgraded to Neutral from Sell by Redburn. The Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index rose 1.4% in April from March. The Hotel Brand sub-index rose 2.5% from March while the Hotel REIT sub-index was down -2.6%.

STR  reported China hotel RevPAR was up 99% year over year for the week ended May 13 . According to Lodging Econometrics’ latest China Construction Pipeline Trend Report , China’s total hotel construction pipeline stand sat at 3,659 projects/680,959 rooms at the end of Q1 2023. Macau visitor arrivals rose 16.2% in April from March, up 275% year over year, to 2,274,050.

Hilton kicked off earnings season with solid results. You could not get much better than Hilton’s with a solid beat. Travel + Leisure beat expectations, bought back $102 million worth of stock and gave out more in dividends than expected. The stock went down. Sonder has become the first of the SPACs that are either penny stocks or close to it, to receive a deficiency notice from their trading exchange.

Upper upscale hotels, the property types most associated with business travel, are well represented in the U.S. development pipeline . According to the American Customer Satisfaction Index Travel Study 2022-2023, satisfaction across all four industries measured, airlines, hotels, car rentals, and online travel agencies, is up . STR reported US lodging data for the week ended 4/15. US hotel RevPAR was up 8.6% year over year.

B of A Securities initiated coverage on Hilton Grand Vacations with a Neutral rating and $50 price target. OYO plans to expand its market presence in the U.S. with an addition of over 100 hotels in CY2023. Morgan Stanley cut their price target on Park Hotels to $13 a share from $14 while maintaining their Equal Weight rating.