Family offices and high-net worth individuals (HNWIs) that invest in hospitality have often targeted luxury hotels, both due to their familiarity with such structures, and a desire to associate with the very best.
“HNWIs have always liked hotels, particularly high-end properties,” says David Kellett, head of hotels, Savills. “They like the luxury association, which is essentially an emotional attachment. On the rational side, they like hotels because they are high yielding.”
However, the investment strategies of modern family offices are changing, as their businesses evolve into more institutionalised structures, with significant fundraising capabilities to boot. Meanwhile, their typically “patient” capital allows them to cherry-pick investments and explore different preferences over long-term horizons.
Investment choices
When HNWIs and family offices do invest in luxury properties, it can in fact reflect a business savvy appreciation of the sector’s counter-cyclical qualities. Fabio Longo, chief investment officer of Mohari Hospitality, says: “In a K-shaped economy, luxury has enduring appeal. Our view is also that luxury has very strong tailwinds from a secular perspective. It has outperformed other sectors in terms of RevPAR and ADRs since 2018.”
But high-end hotels are not the only domain of the wealthy investor. For example, Dominus, the real estate arm of the Ahluwalia family, takes a pragmatic approach to hotels with a preference for four-star franchises, working with the likes of Hilton, Marriott and IHG. “Some of those core brands wok really well, such as the Courtyard by Marriott we own in Oxford. In every case the hotels are run by our own teams,” says principal director Jay Ahluwalia. The business has also had success with developing Curio Collection properties in partnership with Hilton, rolling out Lost Property St Paul’s and imminently The Derby London City, which will cater to both business travellers and tourists.
L+R, the family office hospitality investor and operator headquartered in London, is notable for its extremely diverse approach. Today the firm boasts a portfolio of over 115 hotels across eight countries, from resorts in Barbados to every segment imaginable in the UK and beyond. Assets include a 1,000-room Marriott select-service complex next to DisneyWorld’s Magic Kingdom in Orlando, Florida as well as the five-star luxury Hotel Excelsior Venice Lido Resort, a Film Festival beacon. The Nobu Ibiza is one of the Mediterranean’s hottest destinations; while Lygon Arms is a charming, historic Cotswolds retreat dating back to the 17th century. But these apparently diverse assets are linked by an “opportunistic approach” to hospitality, says CEO Cody Bradshaw, in which discretionary capital can be rapidly deployed where the business sees “the best risk-rewards”.
Geographical preferences
While family offices and HNWIs are well distributed across the EMEA region, several are concentrated in key economic powers, from the UK to Switzerland and Israel. Many offices focus on investing in their home bases, such as UK-based Dominus or Arora Group. The latter has been in UK hospitality since 1999, with founder and chairman Surinder Arora a major landowner around Heathrow Airport. “We’ll be investing £1.8 billion in hospitality over the next three years, all of it in the UK, apart from the Sofitel at Dublin Airport that we are building – my first overseas hotel,” Arora told delegates recently at the Annual Hospitality Conference in Manchester. Last year, Arora closed on a deal for Bloc Hotels, which holds the 245-bedroom Bloc Gatwick and the 105-key Bloc Birmingham, plus two pipeline properties.
Pontegadea is the family office of Amancio Ortega, the second richest individual in Europe after Bernard Arnault and the richest in Spain. As of May 2025, Ortega had a net worth of $107 billion. The fund acquired the 90-room Autograph Collection Hotel Banke Opera in Paris for €97 million in 2025, marking Ortega’s first hotel acquisition in the French capital. While not solely focused on hotels, Ortega – who owns a 59% stake in Zara-parent Inditex – mostly reinvests the company’s dividends across the real estate spectrum, targeting residential, office and logistics as well.
Rueben Brothers is a single-family office, based in Switzerland, which was established in 2002 to manage the wealth of David and Simon Reuben. The brothers focus on real estate, venture capital, and private equity investments, and have made notable hotel deals across Europe, with a penchant for Italy. Holdings including luxury hotel Baglioni Luna in Venice and Capri’s Hotel La Palma. The brothers acquired a former bank headquarters in Rome which is about to reopen as a luxury hotel flagged by Corinthia.
Switzerland is also home to Michel Reybier Hospitality, the office of the French billionaire who specialises in the hospitality, wellness, and wines & champagne sectors. With properties in Bern, Zermatt, Davos and London, key holdings including La Réserve Paris and La Chartreuse de Cos d’Estournel.
Regional trends
Other regions, such as the Nordics, number families that are focused on their local interests and expertise. The Norwegian Wenaasgruppen mainly targets hotel properties and alpine ski resorts in the Nordics. The Glastad Holding, which manages the shipping wealth of the Glastad family, invests in a range of assets, including residential, retail, hotel, office and industrial. The family office has participated in a number of notable Nordic hotel deals, such as its purchase of the Savoy Hotel in Oslo in 2024 alongside Njord Securities.
Christian Ringnes is a private property investor and the principal shareholder and CEO of real estate companies Eiendomsspar and Victoria Eiendom. Olso-headquartered Eiendomsspar in turn owns a major stake in Stockholm-based hotel developer Pandox, holding around 36 percent of voting rights in the firm. Eiendomsspar also took a minority participation in Pandox’s takeover deal for Dublin-headquartered Dalata last year, which included a pan-European portfolio.
There is also increasing appetite from family offices to invest at the fringes of the EMEA region, across its emerging markets. Says James Wrenn, partner - head of hotel & leisure capital markets, MEA, at Knight Frank: “In the past two years we've seen a significant increase in international family offices actively looking to invest in Dubai hotels. Many of these family offices already have an existing hotel portfolio in their home market and/or internationally, and are now looking for exposure to the Middle East/Dubai market. We're also seeing a growing number that have relocated, or are planning to relocate, their private offices to the UAE, which is driving more direct, on-the-ground investment activity.”
He adds: “Typical ticket sizes we're seeing are around the US$50 million mark, and in 2025 alone there were two significant hotel transactions in Dubai involving family offices from Europe and Asia, underlining the breadth and diversity of global capital that is now targeting the UAE.”