brett russell
HVS Market Pulse: Boulder, CO
Brett E. Russell | March 26, 2019
By Brett E. Russell Since 2015, four new hotels (681 rooms) have opened within Boulder's city limits, increasing the total number of hotel rooms to almost 2,500. This represents a sizable increase of around 32%; however, in the years leading up to this increase in supply, Boulder experienced a decline in room supply, as several older hotels were closed and redeveloped. As such, the net change in room count is closer to 15%. Furthermore, there are a couple of proposed hotels in very preliminary planning phases of development, including a project on University Hill, as well as a possible University of Colorado – Boulder campus hotel...
Are Colorado Ski-Resort Hotels Posed for a Rebound?
Brett E. Russell | January 3, 2019
By Brett E. Russell Owning and operating a hotel always has some degree of risk. However, for hotels located in ski-resort regions, this risk continues to be amplified. Risk factors include continued growth of the online home-sharing industry (Airbnb, VRBO, etc.) introducing new supply from non-hotel assets, as well as the seasonal nature of these mountain communities. Another factor that can greatly affect the performance of a ski resort-dependent hotel is weather. The initial snow totals at the beginning of a ski season (November through January) can have a profound impact on the total season's bookings at hotels. The 2017/18 ski seas...
HVS Market Pulse: Why Aren’t Hotels Being Built in Ski Towns?
Brett E. Russell | January 26, 2017
By Brett E. Russell In ski resort towns across the U.S. and Canada, a large and growing number of people are hitting the slopes. In the 2015/16 ski season alone, total skier visits approached 64 million, an increase of about 1.9 million skiers from the previous season. The most recent performance is still about 3.6 million skier visits lower than the peak season of 2010/11, showing that the industry has room for even more growth. Yet despite the climbing numbers and the continued potential for growth, few ski resorts have realized an increase in their bed base. The limited supply increases have come in the form of fractions or timeshare...
The Millennial Shift in Hotel Brands
Brett Russell | December 8, 2015
By Brett Russell | December 2015 The past ten years have ushered in the introduction of more new hotel brands than any time in modern history. Most of these are geared toward the Millennial Generation, with hotel companies creating concepts to capture this vital segment of demand. The U.S. hotel industry is in the midst of its latest, greatest up-cycle in recent memory, with performance figures going skyward year after year. This is part of the reason that major hotel brands, as well as smaller niche companies, have been taking a chance on innovative hotel concepts. Most of these have been engineered to identify with the so-called Mille...
Five Key Takeaways from Americas Lodging Investment Summit
Tanya J. Pierson | February 10, 2015
By Tanya Pierson, MAI; Brett Russell, and Susan Furbay Presentations and conversations at the 2015 ALIS conference touched on everything from new brands and supply to how falling oil prices, a rising dollar, and stability in the capital markets are affecting prospects for U.S. hotels. The Coming Horizons for U.S. Hotels The U.S. hotel industry stands on solid ground as we enter 2015, and this year's Americas Lodging Investment Summit (ALIS) engendered confidence that the strong performance should carry on well into next year. Beyond that, however, questions remain, and nearly everyone in attendance was concerned with how long this perfo...
Snowfalls’s Impact on Ski Market Hotels
Brett E. Russell | February 2, 2015
By Brett Russell January, 2015 Snowfall drives travelers to mountain resorts each ski season, but to what degree, at which resorts, and how far in advance isn't as clear. What is the correlation between snowfall and hotel occupancy, and how does the economy factor in? Many tourism and leisure hospitality markets depend in large part on environmental conditions to drive demand, with visitation up or down depending on whether certain conditions do or don't exist. Hotels in tropical resort markets, for example, can depend on demand drawn to the sunshine and beaches--except in the midst of a hurricane or monsoon. Anomalous meteorological fa...
