Owners, investors, operators, brands, asset managers, technology partners … the list of stakeholders in a hotel business is often a long one.
This multitude of players in the value chain inevitably results in complexity and, unless each of these relationships is managed carefully, complexity has a habit of turning into risk.
The objectives of an asset manager and a hotel general manager are not the same, noted Steven Smit, CFO of Vertiq Hospitality Partners, but they still need to respect each other’s roles and responsibilities.
Misalignment
“As an asset manager, you're much more focused on getting the maximum return on your capital,” he explained. “But some of the things that happen in hotels don't necessarily have a return, or they're more defensive, but if you don't do them, you actually damage the operation and you damage the reputation of the hotel.”
Lack of trust and transparency can lead to losses. David Anderson, president of third-party operator Aimbridge EMEA, commented: “I can recall a portfolio that we had managed for five years, and the owners decided they would look to exit and sell, but they weren't transparent with us about which assets they wanted to sell and how. In retrospect, we could have saved them a fortune if we’d known their intentions.”
He added: “If we have complete understanding with the owner, we’re more likely to be able to help them achieve their goals. We want our owners to know they're in good hands with us in terms of PIPs, brands, and capex planning. These are huge things for the benefit of the asset.”
Collaboration
Jon Colley, chief strategic growth officer UK & Europe, Valor Hospitality, underlined the need for collective collaboration that supports owners: “We should get rid of these tables where you sit on either side, and instead be in a circle, all pointing to the owner’s vision and how to get there. That’s how we approach things. I mean, the ideal is that the HMA gets signed and never comes out of the drawer again.”
Valor Hospitality Partners is a global hotel management company that also provides advisory services. The US headquartered company launched in Europe in 2014, and its UK portfolio has more than doubled in five years from 17 hotels in 2021 to 40 hotels in 2026.
Contracts tightening
Nick Pilbeam, chief commercial officer of serviced apartment brand and operator Cheval Collection, noted that HMAs in Europe are becoming more stringent: “We're seeing more requests about performance guarantees, 20-year P&Ls, ‘give us a 20-year plan with absolute numbers’, and that is what goes into the contract. That's the direction of travel that we're seeing, a narrowing of the gap between leases and HMAs in Europe.”
Cheval Collection started life 45 years ago as a property company that owned serviced apartments, offices, hotels and retail. Since an opco/propco split in 2018, it has been asset-light and grown via management agreements. Cheval Collection operates 950 apartments and has two new branded residence projects in London and Dubai. The group is due to debut in Saudi Arabia in 2027.
Financial reporting
Pilbeam’s recipe for collective success is to decide at the outset on which KPIs to use and deliver “maximum transparency on trading performance.” Measuring GOP per available apartment is essential, and owners and operators must have the same assumptions about what the future holds and act together accordingly.
Anderson at Aimbridge EMEA added: “We've got a financial reporting system where every one of our owners gets yesterday's numbers at 10 o'clock in the morning, so they have full transparency and visibility on the performance of their asset(s).” In 2025, Aimbridge EMEA reported average GOPPAR margin two percentage points higher than its competitor set in England and Wales.
Vertical integration
A more radical solution to navigating multiple relationships is to take greater control over the value chain. French real estate group Covivio and London-based Lifestyle Hospitality Capital Group are two investors that have established their own operating platforms.
And in March 2026, Vertiq Capital, an investment and asset management company, merged with its operating partner Cycas Hospitality to become a single entity called Vertiq Hospitality Partners.
Vertiq’s CFO Smit commented: “This alignment is so important because we’ve been investing in asset managing and we can do that: the sourcing and the exit and the in-between. But now we’re integrating a management platform so that we can service the whole business on a day-to-day basis, across the investment cycle.”
In-house technology
In another example of consolidation within the value chain, GuestReady is an operator of 4,000 units of short stay and flexible living units across Europe and the Middle East. Rather than enlisting the services of a third-party tech vendor, it developed its own in-house technology which it also sells to other accommodation providers.
Alexander Limpert, co-founder and CEO of GuestReady, explained: “To scale up GuestReady, we built RentalReady, which is a property management system (PMS) now used by over 100 other operators managing 10,000 units.”
Having full control over the company’s tech stack has given GuestReady two advantages: the economic viability to manage smaller properties, plus full control over the direction and speed of the tech’s development.
AI powers growth
“Over the last couple of years, it's been a particularly exciting journey, because we've layered AI into the core of the PMS, and we're seeing a lot of efficiencies coming out of that,” said Limpert. “AI is increasingly triaging and prioritising issues, raising and running tasks. So that’s how we make this model work, and how we manage subscale assets of less than 100 units or even 50 units.”
Limpert said that GuestReady has been growing by 30 percent year-on-year without employing new staff: “Just two years ago, that would have been impossible, but it is now because of the use of technology, particularly AI.”
All quotes taken from the panel ‘Operational models to improve performance’ at IHIF EMEA 2026 in Berlin. The panel was moderated by Jon Colley, chief strategic growth officer UK & Europe, Valor Hospitality