Singapore tops buyers of hotels in Asia Pacific

Pent up investor demand for the market pushed volumes to surpass $1b.

Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels released its second quarter statistical analysis of the global hotel investment market, which reveals that $14.8 billion in hotel assets changed hands in the first six months of 2011. Compared with the same period last year, this represents a 117 percent increase, which according to Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels is driven by the easing levels of liquidity, improved hotel trading performance and banks’ actions to speed up workout programs.

Activity in Asia Pacific totalled $2.6 billion with the main action taking place in Singapore, Australia, China, Japan and Hong Kong. “Singapore dominated transaction activity in the first half of 2011 with volumes surpassing $1 billion, reflecting pent up investor demand for the market,” said Scott Hetherington, CEO-Asia for Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels.

“We forecasted volumes to total $2.75 billion in Asia earlier this year and we expect this figure to remain unchanged as growth in countries like Singapore and Thailand is expected to offset decelerated activity in Japan as a result of the March 2011 earthquake,” said Hetherington.

In Australasia, deal volume totalled $478 million with offshore capital sources featuring strongly in the country, accounting for 76 percent of transaction volumes.

“We expect transaction volumes to reach $1 billion in Australasia by year-end 2011, which is up from our previous forecast of $800 million with cross border investment expected to continue,” said Craig Collins, CEO-Australasia for Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels.

Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels expects global hotel investment volumes to reach $34.8 billion in 2011.