The hotel market in the UK has certainly had a stellar year. While the hunt for good value has inevitably become tougher as a result, there are still excellent opportunities to be had for canny investors willing to look outside of the obvious locations.

To demonstrate the point, we analysed more than 40 regional towns and cities, both in terms of the fundamentals which point to positive operational performance and investment pricing, to come up with a Top 10 (see tables below). This included a variety of economic and performance variables as well as both current and forecast bed supply relative to the size of the overnight market.

Considered more closely, these often overlooked markets actually feature a plentiful number of branded hotels which may appeal to institutional investors. They are also likely to trade very well based on GDP growth and are relatively undersupplied in number of hotel beds.

In Leeds, the First Direct Arena has been a huge driver in demand but also moved the hotel market out of the city’s traditional core and away from the train station. Likewise Chester is attractive because of the Grosvenor Shopping Centre, racecourse and a proposed new upscale hotel – as you can see from the high room rates for even budget hotels there.

Other top picks include Bradford which, having traditionally been unloved, with hotels available to buy very cheaply, now has more encouraging economic fundamentals.

With a little imagination, there are still a lot of great value hotel investment opportunities out there in the UK.

Further information

Contact Savills Hotels team