US RevPAR turns positive last month
NATIONAL REPORT —The U.S. hotel industry showed mostly positive year-over-year performance comparisons and was in positive territory for the first time in almost a year, according to the latest data from CoStar.
For the month of January, occupancy was 52.4% (-0.2%), ADR was $152.09 (+0.6%) and RevPAR was $79.69 (+0.4%).
This is the first month of RevPAR growth in the U.S. since March 2025.
Among the top 25 markets, Minneapolis reported the highest increases in occupancy (+17.5% to 50.6%) and RevPAR (+25.9% to $63.01). Winter is traditionally a low-demand period for Minneapolis hotels due to seasonal weather patterns. CoStar said the lift in demand was likely influenced by federal agent activity, protests and media coverage. While properties outside the city experienced slightly stronger gains than those within the urban core, overall occupancy in surrounding areas remained low in the 50% range.
Thanks largely to the College Football Playoff championship game, Miami posted the only double-digit ADR gain (+12.4% to $287.84).
Due to comparisons against the presidential inauguration in 2025, Washington, D.C. registered the steepest declines in ADR (-25.8% to $151.99) and RevPAR (-31.3% to $76.36). Tampa saw the largest drop in occupancy (-14.9% to 68.2%).
NEW YORK CITY – Prism (formerly Oyo) has secured leases on 10 Sonder properties through the Sonder bankruptcy process to launch its Belvilla brand short-term rental and apart-hotel brand in the U.S. The launch marks Belvilla’s first operational presence outside Europe and introduces its lifestyle-led, technology-driven hospitality model to the U.S. market.
Prism selectively secured 10 properties out of 79 assets on offer. The properties secured include:
- Court Square — Long Island City (Queens), New York
- The Industrialist — Brooklyn, New York
- RailSpur — Seattle, Washington
- The Schaeffer — New Orleans, Louisiana
- Skyline — Denver, Colorado
- The Queen — Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- East 5th — Austin, Texas
- Ida — Phoenix, Arizona
- The Louie — New Orleans, Louisiana
- The Dutch — Long Island City (Queens), New York
As part of its initial U.S. rollout, Belvilla has begun operations at The Dutch and Court Square in Long Island City (Queens), New York, and The Louie Hotel in New Orleans, under its upscale urban brand, Belvilla District 6.
Prism also operates Motel 6, Studio 6 under G6, as well as the Oyo brand in North America. It also operates full-service providers such as CheckMyGuest and DanCenter and online marketplace Traum-Ferienwohnungen in Europe.
Prism is projected by global rating agency Moody’s to deliver earnings of around ~$280 million for the financial year ending March 2026.
The court-led process provided access to assets that met Belvilla’s strict criteria on unit economics and operational feasibility. Prism said it is focusing on properties where it can deliver a consistent guest experience while maintaining strong cost discipline.
Belvilla’s expansion into the U.S. is anchored in its European foundation, where it has more than 60,000 holiday homes. Prism said the company’s operating philosophy prioritizes sustainable growth, disciplined cost management, and service quality over rapid scale. Following the Sonder court outcome, Prism said it has seen strong inbound interest from U.S. landlords keen to explore partnerships with Belvilla.
“The U.S. represents an important opportunity for us, and our approach has been deliberate and selective,” said Ankit Tandon, global COO and CEO Europe, Prism. “We chose properties where the fundamentals work from day one, ensuring a balanced and sustainable model for guests and property owners. We are already in touch with additional owners who are keen to sign up with Belvilla as we expand our presence in the market.”
Mandarin Oriental Residences in Florida. Mandarin Oriental and investment partner Great Gulf out of Toronto are developing the Mandarin Oriental Residences, West Palm Beach, the company’s first standalone residential offering in South Florida. The 31-story development will have 87 residences and is scheduled to open in 2031.
$16.3M refinance for 2 in the Midwest. Westlake, Ohio-based Ceres Enterprises has secured a $16.3 million refinancing and financial restructuring for two Wyndham hotels totaling 245 keys in Avon, Ohio, and Noblesville, Indiana. Cleveland-based Brown Gibbons Lang & Company served as the financial advisor for the transaction, with American Bank N.A. providing the bridge financing. The bridge financing retires maturing construction financing, along with the prepayment of an SBA loan.
Rebrand in Atlanta. The W Atlanta Downtown hotel, which recently went through a foreclosure sale, will rebrand as a JW Marriott, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Operator Stonebridge Cos. said the 237-property will be reimagined. Ashford Hospitality Trust acquired the hotel in 2015 for nearly $57 million with a Stonebridge subsidiary buying the property for $24.8 million.
Redevelopment in Chicago. Chicago-based Celadon Partners will spend an estimated $100 million redeveloping the Hotel Florence, a 145-year historic hotel in Chicago’s Pullman neighborhood, according to a story in the Chicago Sun-Times. The surrounding area will also be rehabilitated. “We are breathing new life into this incredible site, while preserving a treasured part of Illinois history,” Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said at an event announcing the project.
PM rebranding in DC. Chevy Chase, Maryland-based PM Hotel Group is rebranding the Hotel Arboretum in Washington, D.C., to City Express by Marriott Washington, DC Northeast. The property is owned by Rocks Hospitality.
IHG adds in Thailand. IHG Hotels & Resorts is partnering with AssetWise Public Co. Ltd. and its subsidiary Rhom Bho Property Public Co. Ltd. to sign the 170-key Hotel Indigo Phuket Nai Yang Beach in Thailand. IHG had almost 100 open and pipeline hotels in Southeast Asia and Korea. IHG has 37 other properties in Thailand, which is set to extend the company’s presence in the country to more than 80 hotels within the next three to five years.
Minor adds Anantara to Australia. Minor Hotels is partnering with Golden Sedayu, a partnership between Perth’s Golden Group and Agung Sedayu, to bring its luxury Anantara brand to Australia with the signing of the 150-key Anantara Perth Hotel. The hotel will anchor the AUD$3.8 billion Burswood Point master-planned development and is scheduled to open in 2032. The Anantara Perth joins a global collection of over 50 Anantara properties.
Canada hotels up in January. Canada’s hotel industry in January reported its highest year-over-year occupancy increase since last July, according to the latest data from CoStar. Occupancy was 51.5% (+3.1% YOY), ADR was CAD188.98 (+4.7% YOY), and RevPAR was CAD97.35 (+7.9% YOY). Among the provinces and territories, Manitoba reported the largest increases across all three key performance metrics: occupancy (+11.9% to 59.6%), ADR (+9.0% to CAD175.84) and RevPAR (+21.9% to CAD104.83). Among the major markets, Edmonton registered the highest gains in ADR (+7.1% to CAD152.46) and RevPAR (+12.6% to CAD77.36). Vancouver saw the largest occupancy lift (+6.9% to 64.5%).
Marriott’s growth in EMEA. Marriott International in Europe, the Middle East & Africa (EMEA) in 2025 signed more 230 hotels representing over 31,000 rooms. Marriott also added 170 properties and nearly 24,000 rooms across EMEA last year, contributing to a 7.8% net room growth in the region. The company’s EMEA region ended the year with a pipeline of over 600 properties and nearly 113,000 rooms. Germany, Italy, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom were the highest growth markets, accounting for the most signings for the company across the region in 2025. Conversions and adaptive reuse projects continue to drive significant growth for the company in the region and account for nearly 50% of the region’s signings this year.
Ryman issues $700M senior notes. Nashville-based REIT Ryman Hospitality said its subsidiaries, RHP Hotel Properties, LP and RHP Finance Corp. intend to offer, in a private placement, subject to market and other conditions, $700 million aggregate principal amount of senior notes due 2034. The issuers intend to use the net proceeds of the offering, together with available cash, to redeem in full the Issuers’ 4.75% senior notes due 2027, including accrued and unpaid interest on the 2027 notes and related fees and expenses.
LONDON — With the macroeconomic landscape remaining relatively frothy, more hoteliers are choosing to enlarge their spheres of influences over their hotels or portfolios by having complete ownership in them.
The risks multiply, but so do the opportunities and flexibility, according to panelists at a session titled “Asset intense” at the Hotel Industry Development Event.
Ben Farnell, partner of real estate at legal firm Baker McKenzie, said data suggests being asset-light aids overall performance for hotel companies, but the panelists disagreed.
Whitbread's portfolio is just shy of 900 hotels mostly in the United Kingdom. Mark Anderson, Whitbread's managing director for property and international, said his firm’s freehold ownership of approximately 540 hotels presents a strong investment case.
“That allows us to raise debt at good pricing and better terms than most. We have control over our development and investment. We can move capital, and we can recycle cash,” he said.
Ronen Nissenbaum, CEO for Western Europe at Fattal Hotels and Leonardo Hotels, said his firm is unapologetically asset-heavy. He added such an approach permits moving rapidly in more markets.
Fattal is a publicly listed company, but Nissenbaum said public earnings reports do not always show the full picture, such as if an asset's profitability adds to its valuation.
In this environment of unstable geopolitics and gross domestic product growth, being more asset-heavy allows control over the hotel company's value chain and destiny, he said.
“I worked for brands for 20 years, so I appreciate the distribution, but now we save that 15%, and with scale we can compete. We have five hotels in London, and the [revenue generation index] is 115. And we’re not being told when [property-improvement plans] are needed,” Nissenbaum added.
Martijn van der Graaf, chief operations officer, for Western Europe at Essendi — which has 96% of his hotel investment portfolio of approximately 500 properties in Europe — said that having full control in a hotel allows his firm “to do the right thing for the asset.”
“Control of the asset gives you control over the timeline of that asset, including investing in the asset during short downturns. We believe this leads to better returns,” he added.
Van der Graaf said that control also helps in environmental, social and governance strategies and goals.
“We do not need a flag in every city now, so we can concentrate on the value of those we have,” he said, adding Essendi is also acquiring some of the properties in its books.
Lily Wecker, CEO of Aethos, said company culture plays a huge part in comfort levels.
“We manage all assets on behalf of our capital partner, [Limestone Capital]. We focus energy on our strengths, and ours is growing value on premium equity. Limestone is great at fundraising. Together, this makes for a better risk-reward profile,” she said.
Graeme McCormack, head of fund management, hotels and leisure at Principal Asset Management, said hotels are the current performance stars of real estate, so there are numerous levers in hospitality to help enhance a hotel's value. He added that many investment vehicles in Europe are restricted in what they can invest in and cannot have ownership operations.
With a little help from my friends
But there are concerns that the asset-light hotel model is too commoditized, Wecker said.
She said branded hotel-chain fees are part and parcel of the industry, and there should not be any conflict, but when those brands “offer something absolutely interchangeable with any other brand,” she begins to doubt the strategy,
Wecker said her preferred approach is to charge a higher base fee for a hotel product that is innovative than to operate in the end of the sector she believes might be more susceptible to compression.
McCormack likened that approach to that of Liverpool’s famous mop tops.
“The Beatles were good because John and Paul got along, albeit with occasional tension, which is not always a bad thing,” he said.
Wecker added the cross-pollination of ideas helps bring complementary attributes, not identical ones.
Being open to new ideas, or tweaking existing ones, is never a bad idea, panelists said.
Anderson said Whitbread does have management agreements in the Middle East.
“We’re flexible, even if most of the estate is not that way. If we potentially move into other markets or segments, we might look at asset-light, if we saw our finances being stretched. That’s not an immediate plan,” he said.
In February, Whitbread signed a memorandum of understanding with Dubai-based owner Equitativa Real Estate to develop between six to eight Premier Inn hotels in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, with up to 3,500 rooms.
Nissenbaum said “we’re still one phone call away, even if we are publicly listed. Speed, access, flexibility, to lease, to manage, to own, to part-own … and one day, perhaps. we might consider franchising,” he added.
Anderson said 10 days after signing a £50 million asset in London, he had paid out the cash.
“Sometimes we’re not the highest bidder but still get the asset,” he added, referring to the overall strength of its investment case.
“Pairing the right capital with the right asset. We do not want to add debt to an asset,” Wecker said, adding that if this means her firm does not grow as fast as it could, so be it.
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