Could it be The White Lotus effect? While portfolio deals dominated the European hotel investment landscape last year, the appeal of the sector has seen high net worth individuals (HNWIs) and family offices increasingly drawn to the hospitality industry, especially the luxury hotel segment globally.
Perhaps it’s the lure of luxurious resorts in exotic locations that the series evokes – plus the HBO show’s customer base of well-off clients with more money than sense – but a flight to quality, with a preference for high-end, well-located hotels with strong branding or unique experiences is what seems to be driving investment from HNWIs.
According to Knight Frank’s recent The Wealth Report, real estate features strongly in the portfolios of the family offices it surveyed, with direct real estate the third most common allocation, behind equities and cash, with indirect real estate investment coming in seventh place. Luxury and branded residences in third place and hotels in fourth were among the most popular real estate asset classes.
The investment approach is mixed. Many family offices have increasingly pursued direct ownership of hotels instead of investing through funds. This approach allows greater control, tax efficiency, and opportunities to align assets with family interests — such as hospitality, sustainability, or brand extension.
HNWIs and family offices step up
Many more family offices are partnering with institutional and private equity players to make acquisitions. Late last year Boston-based The Baupost Group, an investment manager which works on behalf of families, foundations, endowments, and other institutions, teamed up with KKR for the major purchase of a portfolio of 33 Marriott International hotels across the UK from a wholly owned subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority. Amante Capital, KKR’s vertically integrated European hospitality platform, is managing partner for the joint venture and the properties have continued as premium Marriott branded hotels.
While advisor Savills anticipates a decline in private equity investment in 2025 due to fewer portfolios coming to market, it believes private investors, including HNWIs, owner-operators and non-traded REITs, will continue to demonstrate strong appetite for hotels after volumes among those groups totalled €5.45 billion in 2024, an 18.1 per cent year-on-year increase, up 39.6 per cent compared with the ten-year annual average.
However, while luxury and boutique segments have thrived, some parts of the hotel market — particularly older, unbranded properties in secondary markets — have continued to face distress. Rising interest rates and maturing debt have created acquisition opportunities for well-capitalised HNWIs as assets face refinancing challenges. HNWIs in North America have moved quickly to acquire distressed properties at discounts, often with plans to rebrand or reposition them for better market fit.
European deals show trend
Likewise, a number of European deals emphasise the appetite for family offices to increase their involvement in the hotel market and the appeal of value-add and operational real estate. Last year Berlin-based private equity firm Activum sold the three-star, 241-room Hampton by Hilton Barcelona Fira Gran Via to an undisclosed UK family office for €50 million. The hotel opened in 2021, reportedly cost ASG €40 million to develop, and has a franchise agreement with Hilton and a long-term operating lease with Dutch white label operator Borealis Hotel Group.
Similarly, Balearic hotel chain BG Hotels sold the four-star, 243-room Portinatx Beach Club Hotel on Ibiza to an undisclosed Spanish family. The €60 million transaction for the all-inclusive hotel closed in Q4 2023 and included plans for renovations aimed at improving the asset to five stars. In January the hotel won government aid of around €4.7 million to help with the works.
Also in Spain, the holding company of the Fabre Luengo family, Bancalé, bought the Hotel Rafael Atocha in Madrid, part of the Reyal Urbis portfolio, in July for around €80 million.
And in France, Ginto Hotels Group and the Arnault family added the Hôtel Pilgrim Paris – Quartier Latin to their portfolio. The boutique, four-star property opened in late 2023 and is situated in Paris’s 5th arrondissement. Arnault had previously lost out to Mohari Hospitality in a bid for Venice’s Hotel Bauer.
Trophy assets appeal to HNWIs
“High net worth investors are investing more in hotels than previously and we have recorded an increase of 282 per cent in the volume of investment generated from HNWIs over the past five years. Despite this significant increase, the investment activity represented by HNWIs represented only 3 per cent of 2024 volumes,” Cushman & Wakefield International Partner and Head of Hotel Transactions, EMEA Frederic Le Fichoux says.
“Among key EU markets, the ones with the largest share of HNWI buyers in the last five years were Germany (11.2 per cent), Greece (4.4 per cent), Ireland (2.4 per cent) and France (2.3 per cent). In 2024, Greece took pole position with 8.4 per cent followed by Italy with 4.1 per cent,” he adds.
He points to Gruppo Statuto, the investment vehicle of Giuseppe Statuto, as a leader in this trend, having acquired six trophy hotels in Europe since 2013, amounting to a total of circa €1.2 billion. Other significant transactions from HNWIs completed over the past six months include the acquisition of the Astir Palace Four Seasons in Greece by George Procopiou, a Greek HNWI, at €700 million, the Alpina Gstaad in Switzerland by a US HNWI for over €200 million and the aforementioned Bauer Rosewood hotel in Venice by the Mohari Group at €300 million.
“All these transactions are luxury trophy assets that represent a price well over €1 million per key and are significant transactions,” says Le Fichoux. “We have also recorded more transactions from HNWIs in the midmarket segments. The typical volume of these transactions is around €5 to €15 million and are mostly strategic acquisitions to add to family wealth.”
The increasing activity among individual investors and family offices has not gone unnoticed and Houston-based investment giant Hines recently announced a number of appointments to support the growth of its Hines Private Wealth Solutions platform (Hines PWS) in a new push to work with individual investors in Europe for the first time. Hines appointed Eugenio Cicconetti, previously the Head of the Global Financial Client Group at Schroders, was appointed to serve as the European Head of Hines PWS.
The combination of global investors and investment advisors with HNWIs and family offices looks like it will play an increasing role in the investment picture over coming years in a twist almost worthy of an HBO mini-series.