In 2019 more than € 1.1 billion worth of hotel real estate was sold in the Netherlands, according to the annual update of Invast Hotels. And even with the highest average price per hotel room sold ever! This is a slight increase compared to 2018, when more than € 910 million in hotel real estate was sold. The transaction volume was boosted in 2019 by the sale of DoubleTree by Hilton Amsterdam Central Station for an estimated amount of € 425 million. This is the highest amount for which an individual hotel was sold in the Netherlands. In 2017 the same hotel was sold for € 350 million, an increase of more than 20% in 2 years.
The transaction of the development project Y-Towers in Amsterdam where a Maritim hotel with 579 rooms is planned is not included in this report. The total transaction price of this development has been published as approximately € 460 million, but this development also includes apartments and a large- scale parking garage, which may cause this transaction to count and give a distorted picture.
The annual update of the hotel real estate is based on the unique hotel database of Invast Hotels, which now includes over 1,900 of the larger hotels in the Netherlands. In addition to the cadastral sales transactions of the real estate, the list is also supplemented with corporate transactions that are not registered at the Land Registry. In these latter transactions the shares in a company are transferred, which information is not publicly available. As a result, this transaction database is the most reliable source of hotel transactions in the Netherlands.
The average transaction price per room in 2019 was € 247,996, an increase of approximately 46% compared to 2018 (€ 170,122). The graph below shows the development of the total volume and price per room of hotel real estate transactions in the Netherlands between 2008 – 2019.
It is striking that in 2019 not a single five-star hotel was sold and only a few hotels with none, one or two stars. Traditionally, the most sold hotel rooms belong to the four-star category.
Transactions
A number of very high-profile hotel transactions took place in 2019. The table below shows the larger and high-profile transactions of 2019 in the Netherlands.
DoubleTree by Hilton Amsterdam Central Station
Since the transaction of DoubleTree by Hilton Amsterdam Central Station accounts for no less than 38% of the total transaction volume in the Netherlands, an analysis without this transaction is also interesting. Without the DoubleTree by Hilton Amsterdam Central Station transaction, the average transaction price per room in the Netherlands will drop from € 247,996 to € 175,937 in 2019. The graph below shows the development of the total volume and price per room of hotel real estate transactions in the Netherlands between 2008 – 2019, excluding the DoubleTree by Hilton Amsterdam Central Station transaction.
Amsterdam
The Amsterdam hotel real estate market is a unique market within the Netherlands. Amsterdam is highly sought after by domestic and foreign tourists and many business guests also have an overnight stay in Amsterdam. This results in higher occupancy rates and average room prices throughout the year compared to the rest of the Netherlands.
The total transaction volume in Amsterdam in 2019 was over € 814 million, approximately 72% of the total transaction volume in the Netherlands. The average price per room in Amsterdam in 2019 was € 375,127. By way of comparison, the transaction volume in Amsterdam in 2018 was approximately €468 million with an average price per room of €327,079.
The table below shows the differences in price per room in 2019 between Amsterdam and the rest of the Netherlands.
When interpreting the table above, one should take into account the low number of hotels with none, one or two stars sold in 2019. The price per room for four-star hotels is also strongly influenced by the transaction of DoubleTree by Hilton Amsterdam Central Station. Without this transaction the price per room of four star hotels in Amsterdam was € 279,119 and in the Netherlands including Amsterdam € 205,563.
