WorldCity Business Magazine

Rooms to Go

by WC

Two companies enjoying the boom in Latin America’s hotel market have checked in to South Florida.

Hotels change hands at Jones Lang Lasalle faster than they do in the game of Monopoly.

But, whereas there are only 12 properties to sell and buy in the standard board game, the London-based multinational the world’s largest hotel investment company sold the equivalent of 32,049 hotel rooms in 2005 and sees further opportunities going forward particularly in Latin America.

So, for Park Place the site of many fictional hotel transactions in the original Atlantic City version or Park Lane, the London equivalent, think Paseo de la Reforma, Mexico’s main drag or the famous Avenida Paulista in Sao Paulo, Brazil. This is where the action is across the region.

Jones Lang Lasalle Hotels has been overseeing deals in locations such as this from its Coral Gables office, opened in 2001, where it employs eight people.

Executive vice president Gregory Rumpel assumed his present position in 2005 four years after setting up the South Florida operation. The office handles investment sales, financing and real estate advisory work in Mexico, the Caribbean and Latin America.

Rumpel has completed transactions here that include the refinancing of the Ritz-Carlton Jamaica and the Westin Charlotte, as well as sales of the Marriott Mexico City Airport, the Cheeca Lodge and Spa in Islamorada, Fla., Caneel Bay Resort in St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands and the Lake Lanier Islands Resort in Atlanta.

The company forecast in December that global hotel transactions for 2006 would reach the $70 billion mark a rise of 38 percent on 2005, making 2006 the strongest year on record.

The 13th issue of the Hotel Investor Sentiment Survey reveals that the appetite for hotel real estate remains strong. “Buyers outnumber sellers by three-to-one globally and stock is scarcer still in Europe where buyers exceed sellers by five-to-one,” said Arthur de Haast, CEO of global operations.

“Along with trading optimism there has been a tightening in average yields globally,” said de Haast, “which has emerged as a result of a positive economic climate plus substantial capital in the market, limited new supply, increasing transparency and ongoing improvements in hotel trading performance.”

“It is clear that some investors remain confident of even better times ahead as they continue to hold their assets in this strong seller’s market,” he said. “Investor sentiment in building new hotels has increased by nearly 7 percent since our last survey six months ago, a reaction to the slow supply of assets coming to market and the fierce competition for these assets which continues to drive pricing upwards.”

In another indication that the tourism sector is thriving in Latin America, Mexico’s Grupo Posadas, which operates hotels across the region, operates regionally from Kendall from where it conducts business as Posadas USA.

The company operates eight brands: Aqua, Fiesta Americana, Fiesta Americana Grand, Fiesta Inn, LAT 19 and One Hotels in Mexico; Caesar Business and Caesar Park across South America. It owns vacation club Fiesta Americana Vacation Club.

The hotel group operates across the board. In Mexico, it runs properties in sectors from economy to business class while elsewhere in South America, predominantly Brazil and Argentina, it targets the Caesar Park brand to the deluxe business market and Caesar Business unsurprisingly to professionals.

The group has grown to 92 hotels and more than 17,000 rooms across Latin America in 37 years of business and manages 20 percent of the tourist category hotel chains in Mexico.

Grupo Posadas employs eight people in South Florida and manages a further 18 across the region from here. WC