Pérez-Llorca chose the city of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria to host the forum on ‘Investment Trends in the Hotel Sector’, for which numerous experts in the sector gathered at the Confederación Canaria de Empresarios. These experts included Miguel Vázquez, Managing Director of Hotels at Colliers International; Víctor Martí, Director of Atom Socimi and CEO of GMA HCI; Santiago de Armas, Chairman of the IFA Hotels Group and Director of the Lopesan Group; Alejandro Osma, Corporate Law Partner at Pérez-Llorca; and Patricia Alonso-Lamberti, an associate in the same practice area at Pérez-Llorca.
The session was split into three sections which covered different areas of interest. The first section dealt with the current status of investment in hotels, both nationally and in the Canary Islands, as well as the profile of the most active investors in the hotel sector, especially in relation to the holiday sector. The largest transactions of 2018 and the outlook for this year were also discussed briefly.
The speakers then debated the repositioning of hotel assets and investment volumes, and explained the types of agreement investors are looking for: management, rental or franchise.
Lastly, they considered the bank financing trends in the hotel sector and their criteria for developing hotel projects. There was also an opportunity to exchange views on the future of the investment market, its challenges and opportunities: main actors, tourist destinations and possible transactions.
The event was chaired by Agustín Manrique de Lara, Secretary of the Confederación Canaria de Empresarios, and moderated by Gonzalo Gutiérrez, Director of the Hotels division at Colliers International.