ATLANTA — At the Wall Street Talks panel on hospitality transactions at the Hunter Conference, held this week at the Signia by Hilton Atlanta, investors and a brand executive were notably optimistic on hotel deal activity and performance heading into 2026, even as construction costs, labor pressures and muted fundamentals will continue to be challenges.
Riller Capital's Suril Shah moderated the discussion, which included Scott Trebilco, senior managing director of real estate at Blackstone; Mit Shah, founder and CEO of Noble Investment Group; Karim Alibhai, principal of Gencom and Christian Charnaux, chief development officer at Hilton. Collectively, they described a market that has moved from a “deep slumber” into a more active—if highly selective—phase of transactions.
Trebilco described the past 18 months as a lesson in momentum interrupted and regained. “This time last year, there was a lot of optimism going into ’25 that [activity] was going to continue to escalate and accelerate,” he said. “Then the events of April happened and the markets really froze.” Even so, post‑Labor Day brought an upswing. “Volumes ended up—up year on year, something in the mid‑teens. We ended up doing four deals … and from a volume standpoint, we’re up about 50 percent year on year.”
Blackstone is executing “a very calculated, targeted strategy” in markets with multiple demand drivers and clear asset‑management levers: New York, Miami, San Francisco and coastal Florida—markets with multiple demand drivers and exposure to group and leisure business, particularly in the higher-end segments.
Trebilco added that his own travel schedule is a decent indicator of the pipeline. “I think I’ve been on a plane 90 percent of the days so far this year—it feels like a pipeline right now as big, as interesting as it’s been," he said.
Noble acquired more than 100 hotels last year and Mit Shah believed the year rewarded specialists willing to lean in while some generalist capital sat on the sidelines. “This is not ‘load the truck and buy everything,’” he cautioned. “It’s not just markets—it’s the street corners and the neighborhoods in those markets.”
He pointed to capex needs, generational transitions among owners and the reality that the big guys, like Blackstone, could find easier yield elsewhere. “They could write a $5 billion check into data centers all day with healthy economics,” he said. “We felt the migration of opportunities” in hotels as portfolios came to market with fewer bidders than in past cycles.
Shah remains bullish on revenue per available room growth into 2026, despite the conservative industry forecasts. “The reality that travel is innate within us, along with the lowest amount of supply growth that we’ve seen in our industry, leads to kind of the optimism to say: let’s lean in.”
Luxury Transacts Again—At the Right Price
Regarding the industry's bright spot, Alibhai said seller expectations regarding luxury assets have finally normalized. “Coming out of the pandemic, while the resort sector flew very high, urban luxury was trending behind,” he said. “In the last 24 months, sellers, specially institutional sellers, [became] more realistic on pricing.”
That opened doors: Gencom acquired The Ritz‑Carlton New Orleans, InterContinental New York Times Square and the Ritz-Carlton New York Central Park. “At one point you couldn’t touch anything in New York City as buyers from Asia and the Middle East paying three‑ to four‑cap deals,” he said. “Now the market was actually a little open for us.”
New York City is still a tough market to operate in with union labor and F&B economics. Alibhai cited an alarming data point: “For this $23 glass of wine, it’s costing us $68 by the time it gets to the guest.”
Gencom pursued breakfast model changes and third‑party F&B structures to stem losses at those properties and is exploring arrangements to lease out F&B where feasible.
The Economics Are Against New Build
New‑build feasibility is the biggest brake on supply in the market according to the panel. “We repriced a Great Wolf resort in Tennessee where costs went up 10 percent over 18 months; it now costs almost $800,000 a key to build," Trebilco said.
Mit Shah said Noble hasn’t found a new‑build that "pencils in a five‑year hold period” in the last two years. He sees two ways to change the math: Make the business more profitable through operating model redesign and tech‑enabled efficiencies and compress build timelines with modular construction. Noble’s next‑gen modular project is targeting “site work to opening” in nine months for a midscale extended‑stay asset.
From the brand side, Charnaux said that Hilton is prioritizing owner returns over pure RevPAR. “Back when Home2 [Suites] was launched, RevPAR index share was the driver,” he said. “Now, cost to build, investment to maintain product and service—clearly, that’s all up.”