Dominique Ozanne on which hotel sectors are worth investing in across Europe
BnB hotel, Evian, France. Hova bought the asset in 2022
After a 25-year career in hospitality, Dominique Ozanne decided to partner with
Gaël Le Lay to start their own business.
Through the Hova and Petra platforms, Ozanne focuses on hotels ranging from
campsites to four-star hotels, guiding his clients through all stages of the
investment process: from finding good opportunities, sourcing financing,
managing assets and ensuring asset performance.
Drawing on the network built up during his long stay at Covivio, Ozanne and his
partner act as a gateway for international funds wishing to succeed in Europe.
Ozanne sat down with Green Street News to talk about why now is the right
time to invest in Germany and why hospitality is a remedy to inflation.
How would you define Hova Hospitality and Petra’s strategies?
Hova Hospitality and Petra are two asset management and investment
platforms specialised in hospitality across Europe. Hova Hospitality focuses on
core and core-plus assets, and Petra on value-add assets.
For instance with Petra we managed the purchase of 24 hotels in Spain last year on behalf of a wholly owned subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (Adia). In order to manage this portfolio, we created an office in
Madrid to monitor the business and the repositioning of the assets.
Dominique Ozanne, Hova Hospitality and Petra AM
You recently agreed to acquire a portfolio of 30 hotels in Germany with BC Partners. Is Germany an interesting country to invest in right now?
Hotel performances at a general level in Germany have been complicated since
the Covid crisis. The German market has been the less-performing one in
Europe for several macro-economic reasons.
“The German market will rebound and especially in the economy
and mid-range segments making it the right time to invest”
As a result, hotel values have declined compared to other countries in Europe.
However, we believe that the German market will rebound and especially in the
economy and mid-range segments making it the right time to invest. We
consider the acquisition of the 30 hotels in partnership with BC Partners to be in
the right momentum.
What do you think of hospitality in ski areas? And what about hospitality
in beach towns? Is it an asset class that has known its best days, or is it
still on trend?
In Europe, since the end of the Covid crisis, resorts have improved their
operational performance due to the development of remote work and strong
recovery of the leisure tourism. Simultaneously, the investment market is
structuring itself around these types of assets as more and more investors are
showing interest in this “resort” asset class.
Club Med Gremogliano, Evia island, Greece. Hova bought the asset in 2022 for around €68m
We believe that this will keep increasing in the coming years. The key success
factor is to buy in destinations that allow for a minimum opening period of six to
seven months per year to maximise revenues with winter and/or summer seasons that can support strong operational performance.
Do you think the Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games were a success forthe hotel sector?
The Olympics helped boost business figures (occupancy rate at 84%, and the
average price increased by 118% compared to 2023 during the Olympic period,
with RevPAR multiplied by 2.5).
“The key success factor is to buy in destinations that allow for a
minimum opening period of six to seven months per year to
maximise revenues”
However, both the pre- and post-Olympic periods were quiet, very quiet.
Nevertheless, in the long term, the impact should be very positive, as the
Games helped showcase France’s cultural heritage.
Is hospitality the best asset class to protect against inflation?
Hotel assets gather two main qualities: regular cash flows and potential for
value creation higher than the inflation.
They of course benefit from the positive inflation cycles due to the variable
revenues (even in case of lease agreements with rents based on turnover or
profit).
And, if you add repositioning/rebranding asset management strategies to the
assets, hotels are a specialised asset class with strong value creation potential.
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