According to KPMG’s M&A trends in travel, leisure and hospitality, H1 2026 report, released earlier this week, mergers and acquisitions in the sector are slowing but are generating significantly more value. Buyers are becoming highly selective and are concentrating capital into larger, more strategic acquisitions.
Several large transactions shaped the market in the second half of 2025, and the first half of 2026 did not show a broad rebound. Deal count declined, but larger transactions carried more strategic weight. Capital focused on assets with platform control, customer ownership, operating leverage and credible integration pathways.
Deal volume for the overall travel, leisure and hospitality sector declined 7.6 percent year over year while deal value increased 106.8 percent. Value was concentrated in a small number of larger deals, while broader dealmaking stayed measured. For the hospitality and leisure segment, H1 volume declined 17.8 percent from H2 2025 and 6.1 percent year over year. Value increased 1.2 percent from H2 and 106.6 percent year over year, reflecting demand for higher-quality assets.
“In this environment, buyers are looking past the initial acquisition and scrutinizing the actual mechanics of post-close execution,” Daniel Fischer, principal, U.S. travel, leisure and hospitality advisory lead, KPMG, said in the report. “The true value of these large deals won’t be measured on signing day, but by a company’s ability to seamlessly transform the business.”
What Buyers Want
In this K-shaped economy, higher-income consumers are carrying the spending load of the travel, leisure and hospitality sector. They have also been less reactive to general price increases over the last several years. Active buyers were not just buying exposure to travel demand, gaming recovery, resort occupancy or restaurant traffic. They were buying scalable systems: loyalty platforms, route networks, guest data, distribution economics, branded lodging infrastructure, experiential ecosystems and operating models with integration potential.
In H1, buyers favored pricing power, repeat engagement, brand strength, labor discipline, renovation upside, loyalty reach and operating-improvement potential when acquiring hospitality and leisure assets.
According to the report, execution remains the key risk. Large-platform deals can lose value after closing if technology, loyalty, franchise governance, capital expenditures or restaurant operations underperform. The market is paying for scale, but value will be created—or lost—in execution.
Caution and Conviction
The data points to caution on volume and conviction on value. Aggregate value growth should not be read as broad market strength. It shows buyers moving decisively when assets offer scale, control, or strategic scarcity.
Strategic acquirers led the market. Strategic deal value increased 187 percent year over year to $31.1 billion, while private equity deal value increased 2.7 percent year over year to $8.6 billion. Corporate buyers were better positioned to underwrite larger transactions through synergy potential, balance-sheet capacity, operating integration, and longer strategic time horizons. Sponsors stayed active, but value creation depended more on operations than multiple expansion.