Opportunities abound for hotels regardless of Airbnb, say Hotels Investment World panelists

AccomNews Sunday, August 2, 2015

0 1 minute read

There continues to be solid investment opportunities in Australia, was the general consensus of a mix of international investors gathered at the Hotels Investment World conference, held as part of the HotelsWorld Megameet 2015.

There are pockets of opportunities to be had across the country but particularly in Sydney and Melbourne, noted many of the guest speakers. “Our job is to outperform the market,” a very confident Michael Issenberg said as CEO of Accor Asia-Pacific,”In general, operations are in a good position.”

With 80 per cent of the market being domestic, the market has to provide whatever domestic customers want, and AccorHotels made a commitment in favour of sustainability with the introduction of their Planet 21 program. Mr Issenberg considers “saving energy to be good business” as he noted, “sustainability pays dividends in the local community”.

Andrew Heithersay, managing director at SC Capitol Partners, said: “It is harder to find interesting buyers than it was a few years ago but there are always pockets of opportunity.”

Sydney has had a golden run and “has plenty of clarity for the next five years” according to Neil Maxwell, CEO M&L Hospitality (Singapore).

The Australia First Hotel Award winner was announced as Quest Serviced Apartments chairman Paul Constantinou who was asked how he found the regional Quest properties. He replied that the most important thing was to “know your customer and where your customer wants to be”.

He works closely with regional councils and industries to look at what they want and he advised that others should “get into locations with more than one industry”.

Mr Constantinou pointed out that although OTAs are considered to be “disruptors”, it was not so long ago that this was exactly how the industry described serviced apartments. “So just get on with your business and work with them,” he added.