Brandt Hospitality Group Getting Great Results From Accounting Software Partner
Aptech | June 5, 2024
Hospitality Financial Leadership: Why Prioritizing Employee Development Has the Best ROI for Owners Too
David Lund | March 27, 2023
Finance
Hospitality Financial Leadership: What Really Counts and Why
David Lund | October 10, 2022
By David Lund If you do not have all three of these metrics on your radar screen at the same time, you are flying the profit picture in your food operation with at least one eye closed. All three metrics must work together at the same time to get the best view of the potential profitability of your food sales. Let’s explore these three different measurements and see what we find. Average Customer Cover The first part is “average customer cover spend” or ACCS. That is the average amount of food sales per person served. To calculate this, you take the total food sales (only items in the food family) from a given period and divide...
Managing Hotels Through High Inflation: a Game of Maximizing Revenues and Controlling Costs, Hears HVS Seminar
HVS | September 22, 2022
22 September 2022, London: The biggest challenges affecting hotels through this period of high inflation relate to the cost of labour, rising energy prices, coping with supply chain issues, the cost of debt and uncertainty that makes budgeting for the year ahead almost impossible. Discussing these issues at a seminar in London last week ‘Managing and financing hotels through ultra-high inflation’, organised by HVS, Bird & Bird, EP in Hospitality and AlixPartners, an impressive line-up of experts discussed the current challenges facing UK and European hotel revenues, costs and profitability, as well as the impact on M&A activ...
Sonnenblick-Eichner Company Arranges $82.425 Million of First Mortgage Financing for the Ocean Key Resort & Spa Key West, FL
Sonnenblick-Eichner Company | September 14, 2022
Beverly Hills, CA (September 14, 2022) -- Sonnenblick-Eichner Company, on behalf of Noble House Hotels & Resorts, has arranged $82.425 million of fixed rate first mortgage financing for the Ocean Key Resort & Spa in Key West, FL. Ocean Key Resort and Spa is a 100-room, full-service, waterfront resort recently honored by Forbes as the Best Luxury Resort in Key West. Proceeds from the five-year, non-recourse loan priced in the low 5% range, will be used to pay off and defease the existing loan and fund a $10.5 million renovation of the property. The life insurance company loan is interest-only for the entire term. Amenities a...
Hotel Budget Guide for 2022: Everything You Need to Know
September 12, 2022
By Josiah Mackenzie With David Lund I used to think of the budgeting process as a necessary evil, but speaking with David Lund, who has 30+ years of operational and financial leadership experience working with companies such as Hilton, Best Western, and Fairmont Hotels and Resorts, changed my view on this. In his view, hotel budgeting is a way to engage your teams, align on goals, and deliver financial results. The hospitality industry has experienced unprecedented volatility over the past few years, which may make creating a budget for 2023 seem intimidating. But as Lund advises, “the only thing we know about a budget is that it...
HVS Monday Musings: Income Capitalization Approach – The Gold Standard for Valuing Hotels
Anand Rai | August 29, 2022
By Anand Rai According to a recent GlobalData report, 573 deals (including mergers & acquisitions, private equity, and venture financing) were announced in the global travel and tourism (T&T) industry in the first half of 2022, reflecting a 3.1% increase over the same period last year. However, before these deals are concluded, the asset needs to be valued. So, how do we determine a hotel's market value and what exactly is valued under the category of hotels? The main valuation techniques are briefly covered in this article. The hotel’s market value takes into account the value of all of its different components, including th...
Hospitality Financial Leadership: What Hotel Brands Don’t Know – The Secret to Creating Great Financial Expertise
David Lund | August 15, 2022
By David Lund What brands don’t know is, they can create great financial bench strength in their hotels and their owners will pay 100% of the cost. Brands also don’t know that they can create this bench strength with resources that are readily available. Lastly, brands don’t know that their non-financial managers are literally dying to get these financial skills and abilities now and they want to apply them. Brands need to evolve. Brands need to stand still long enough to realize they sell one thing to owners, expertise in running and managing hotels. Brands sell expertise for all aspects of running and managing a hotel. Not just ...
Smart Benchmarking Starts With the Right Compset
Eula Skiles | August 15, 2022
By Eula Skiles Setting up a right profitability management approach starts with understanding your market and benchmarking against the right hotels. It’s also a way to attract the right guests. One of the best ways to do that is identifying the hotels that are most like your own vis-à-vis key count, F&B services and outlets, conference space and other offered amenities. In the hospitality industry, choosing a compset if the first step toward a winning market-share formula. For a consumer, one of the biggest costs of travel is booking a hotel room. The pricing trends of hotel rooms stem from a complex business strategy. In order t...
Hyatt Reports Second Quarter 2022 Results
Hyatt Hotels Corporation | August 11, 2022
Total Fee Revenue More than Doubles from Last Year; Reaches Record Level System-wide RevPAR, Excluding Greater China, Above 2019 CHICAGO (August 11, 2022) - Hyatt Hotels Corporation ("Hyatt" or the "Company") (NYSE: H) today reported second quarter 2022 financial results. Net income attributable to Hyatt was $206 million, or $1.85 per diluted share, in the second quarter of 2022, compared to a net loss attributable to Hyatt of $9 million, or $0.08 per diluted share, in the second quarter of 2021. Adjusted net income attributable to Hyatt was $51 million, or $0.46 per diluted share, in the second quarter of 2022, compared to Adjusted net l...
IHG Releases Half Year 2022 Results
IHG | August 9, 2022
REPORTABLE SEGMENTS1: Reported Underlying1 2022 2021 % change2 % change Revenue1 $840m $565m +49% +53% Revenue from fee business1 $664m $505m +31% +33% Operating profit1 $377m $188m +101% +91% Fee margin1 55.9% 44.1% +11.8%pts Adjusted EPS1 121.7¢ 40.4¢ +201% GROUP RESULTS: Total revenue $1,794m $1,179m +52% Operating profit $361m $138m +162% Basic EPS 117.4¢ 26.2¢ +348% Interim dividend per share 43.9¢ - ¢ NM Net debt1 $1,718m $2,458m (30)% KEY METRICS: $11.7bn total gross r...
Accor: Half-Year 2022 Very Strong Rebound of the Activity With Q2 Above 2019 Level
Accor | July 28, 2022
Q2 REVPAR ABOVE 2019 LEVEL SIGNIFICANT IMPROVEMENT IN PROFITABILITY AND CASH FLOW GENERATION REVENUE UP 109% TO €1,725 MILLION (+97% LFL) EBITDA POSITIVE AT €205 MILLION NET PROFIT GROUP SHARE POSITIVE AT €32 MILLION Sébastien Bazin, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Accor, said: “Once again this quarter, Accor reported a very strong growth in business, exceeding pre-crisis levels for the first time. This marked rebound in all regions and for all of our brands. The summer will confirm these trends and the fall promises to be strong with the recovery of major seminars and conventions. Nevertheless, the Group remain...
Hospitality Financial Leadership – How to Do a Breakeven Analysis Using REVPAR
David Lund | July 18, 2022
By David Lund I have recently read more than one article on breakeven analysis and they all miss the mark in my books because they focus on what occupancy is needed. Occupancy is only half of the final recipe. You also need rate and really in the end you come up with your real break-even point using REVPAR. The key ingredients that need to be assembled and analyzed are fixed expenses, variable expenses based on occupancy and finally the expenses that are directly related to revenue. I will lay out examples of these in the paragraphs below. For the sake of time and simplicity were going to assume this is a limited-service hotel without...
REITs and Commercial Real Estate Well Placed for Longer Term Despite Recent Volatility
JLL | July 15, 2022
CHICAGO, July 13, 2022 – Coming off of one of the strongest years on record, the REIT market is relatively well placed despite the recent volatility. JLL’s Strategic Transactions Monitor details themes driving the REIT market, including a constructive outlook in light of sharply rising rates, an increase in take-private activity and dissipating COVID-19 driven trends. REITs, along with broader markets, are down 20% year to date, driven by growing inflation, Federal Reserve rate hikes and broader geopolitical risks. Though market participants have focused on near-term underperformance, REITs have outperformed on a longer-term basis. ...
Understanding the Role of a Hotel Asset Manager
Heinz Wehrle | July 12, 2022
By Heinz Wehrle Insights about the job description and specific tasks of a Hotel Asset Manager by visiting lecturer, Heinz Wehrle. Hotel Asset Management requires a holistic overview and understanding of the hotel business in its entirety. It is one of the few disciplines which demands both strategic thinking and analytical application. What does a Hotel Asset Manager do? The goal and purpose of the Hotel Asset Manager is to increase the value of the hotel real estate in the function as representative of the owner. To know exactly the objectives of the owner, client or employer is the foundation of our work. The HAM is the link bet...
Until the Dust Settles, Zero-Based Budgeting Is Indispensable
HotStats | June 27, 2022
Some forecasts make sense. George Carlin once astutely predicted the night’s weather: dark. On the other hand, handicapping the future—especially the economy—is a fool’s errand. Here’s what Jamie Dimon once said about it: “No one can forecast the economy with certainty.” If the CEO of JPMorgan Chase can’t do it, good luck to anyone else. His comment rings more true than ever. COVID-19 cast the hotel industry into a free fall and just as the global recovery began to germinate, along came inflation, supply-chain distress, labour shortages, exploding energy and fuel costs and a host of other severe issues that make running a h...
Hospitality Financial Leadership: Why Auditors Miss the Mark
David Lund | June 27, 2022
By David Lund I recently watched a documentary on fraud and why the auditors were unable to detect anything even when they were right on top of what was so obvious to the person featured in the interview. The narrator also explained very clearly that the audit function is set up to fail. This piece is about what hotel auditors do and what they really should be looking at to find inconsistencies that lead to detecting financial problems in the hotel. Auditors are set up to fail because they are so green. I remember we had a revolving door of both internal and external auditors at the hotel for what seemed like years. Funny thing is ot...
Hospitality Financial Leadership: The First Fifty
David Lund | June 13, 2022
By David Lund As I write this piece, I am proud to say I am 58 years young. So far, my life has been great. Many challenges to overcome like anyone and many bumps in the road for sure. Someone once said that success is simply going from one disaster to the next and the trick with that is no stopping to lament on the carnage left behind. That might be a little tongue and cheek, but you get the point. Things happen to us all and our ability to move on and keep going without the permanent thoughts about what happened and why, I believe is the key to my life. That does not mean I do not learn from my mistakes, but it does mean I go easy on ...
Agilysys to Report Fiscal 2022 Fourth Quarter Results May 17th and Host Conference Call and Webcast
Agilysys | May 4, 2022
ALPHARETTA, GA. — May 4, 2022 — Agilysys, Inc. (AGYS), a leading global provider of next-generation, cloud-native SaaS and on-premise hospitality software solutions and services, announced today that it will release its fiscal 2022 fourth quarter results after the market closes on Tuesday, May 17th, 2022 and host a conference call and webcast at 4:30 p.m. ET that day. Both the call and webcast are open to the general public. The conference call number is 224-357-2393 (domestic or international) and the conference ID number is 9326259. Participants should call the conference line at 4:15 p.m. ET to ensure connection before the presenta...
Avison Young Closes 29 Hotel Transactions
Avison Young | May 3, 2022
ATLANTA – May 3, 2022 – Avison Young Hospitality Group announced today that the hotel brokerage firm has closed 29 separate hotel transactions over that last 150 days totaling just under ½ billion of value. 12 of the hotels were either Hilton, Marriott or Hyatt assets and were located in most US regions. Most notable was the Fall River Resort - Estes Park CO, Hotel Monaco - Chicago, 15 story IHG - Downtown Nashville, Hyatt Place/ Hyatt House dual brand – Scottsdale AZ and the Courtyard Oceanfront – Ocean City Maryland. Three of the sales represented pricing between 400k and 500k per room....
Avison Young’s Hotel Auction Team
Avison Young | April 28, 2022
ATLANTA – April 28, 2022 – Avison Young announced today that Brad Sinclair and Michael Bernath lead Avison Young’s hotel auction team. Over the past 10 months, the team has closed 8 hotels on the Ten-X Auction platform at an average sale of 23% over the reserve pricing. The latest hotel auction ended last week, ultimately selling for 74% over reserve. Avison Young has closed over 80 transactions through the Ten-X platform. Examples of recent closing include the Homewood Suites Lansdale PA, Hilton Garden Inn Cranberry PA, the Springhill Suites Albany/Colonie, NY and the Hampton Inn Omaha, NE. Brad Sinclair said: Our consistent and a...
What the 2022 Revitalization of EB-5 Financing Means Today: Part 1
Jim Butler | April 19, 2022
By Jim Butler and the Global Hospitality Group® Since the renewal of the EB-5 program this year, there has been a lot of talk about what this means for developers interested in taking on new projects. Our recent article in Westlaw Today sums up the latest information about the program. Part one is below; part two will be published next week. This article was originally published on Westlaw Today on April 14, 2022. What the 2022 Revitalization of EB-5 Financing Means for Real Estate Developers and Other Entrepreneurs: Part 1 After being sidelined for the last few years by circumstances culminating with the pandemic and the lapse o...
Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index Increased 2.2% in March
Baird | April 11, 2022
HENDERSONVILLE, Tennessee, and MILWAUKEE — April 11, 2022 — The Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index increased 2.2% in March to a level of 5,882. Year to date through the first three months of 2022, the stock index increased 2.4%. “Hotel stocks increased in March but underperformed their benchmarks as stock market volatility eased and geopolitical concerns did not worsen,” said Michael Bellisario, senior hotel research analyst and director at Baird. “Underlying hotel fundamentals continued to improve in March, and the outlook appears more favorable today than just one month ago despite all of the background noise in the stock ma...
Hospitality Financial Leadership: The Key Attributes of a Proper Hotel Financial Statement
David Lund | April 4, 2022
By David Lund Having a monthly financial statement for your hotel is the key to creating an effective management process inside your business. But, like many things in life, hotel financial statements are not all equal. To be effective your statement needs to be in shape, and it must have the proper features that allow you the insight you need to make better operating decisions in a timely manner. That is what this is all about, defining what the modern-day standards are when it comes to designing and producing a good hotel financial statement. Monthly First and foremost, you MUST produce your financial statement each mo...
Spirides Provides $7 Million in Loans to Refinance Debt & Renovate Two Hotels in Sylva, NC
Spirides Hotel Finance Company | March 29, 2022
TAMPA, FLORIDA—Spirides Hotel Finance Company has successfully provided and the borrower has officially closed $7 million in loans to refinance the existing mortgage debt and fund renovations to the Holiday Inn Express and Clarion Pointe hotels in Sylva, North Carolina. The 67-room Holiday Inn Express Sylva, NC is located at 26 Rufus Robinson Road. Its ownership retained the services of Spirides Hotel Finance Company to provide them with a new conventional mortgage which has a much lower fixed rate of interest than that of their previous mortgage as well as additional funds to perform a comprehensive Holiday Inn Express “Formula Blue...
Cost Efficiencies and Strong Investor Appetite Hold Hotel Values Relatively Firm, Says HVS Report
HVS | March 28, 2022
London - March 28, 2022 - Europe’s hotels saw a recovery in values in 2021 buoyed by cost efficiencies, strong demand in the second half of the year and continued investment interest, according to the annual European Hotel Valuation Index published this week by global hotel consultancy HVS. The report indicates a 5% average improvement on values compared with 2020. The fact investors maintained their interest in hotels during the pandemic has held values fairly steady, particularly in properties with good potential and in strong locations driving demand for deals that are realistically priced. There was no real volume of distressed s...
