Hotels: it’s time for redevelopment

Thursday, April 5, 2018

The tourism sector represents a fundamental asset for the development of a country, totally undermined by the quality of its real estate: a good 65% of hotels were built before the ‘70s.

The possibilities of 4.0 construction can meet the requalification needs in a short time and with high levels of energy, environmental performance and with limited and, above all, certain management costs.This was worked on during the REbuild Club organised in Milan at the headquarters of Ideal Standard, a business that is developing innovative solutions with a modular and sustainable approach.

“We need to think about the building – stated Eugenio Cecchin, chairman of Ideal Standard – as the fulcrum of a series of players who bring ideas and experience from different fields, with a capacity for innovation. Innovation which, in our opinion, is divided into two types: adjacent, that which is done within the company and which aims at improving the product or services, but that does not allow it to become a leader in its sector; transformational, where all the players in the supply chain share best practices, approach logic, the vision of the problem in the construction of a building and try to abstract themselves from the single development/product of their company. This is the innovation that brings about change and it is only possible if there is somebody who tries to be the integrator and who pushes for cooperation. This, for me, is open source innovation and is the reason why we are associated with REbuild, to whom we attribute this role of connector.”

Giorgio Ribaudo, Project Manager of Horwath HTL, presented the latest “Hotel and Chains 2018” report, underlining how the hotel sector has an aging real estate heritage, yet it doesn’t seem to stop the tourists from coming. Demand increases and, simultaneously, the demands and expectations of travellers also increase. As a consequence, this results in the growth, as we have seen for years now, of the number of rooms belonging to hotel chains, even though it should be said that in Italy, hotel chains are still decidedly in the minority, accounting for a mere 4.5% of the total number of hotels in the world, estimated at around 34,000 rooms. The report also highlights that interventions are planned to relaunch and redevelop existing structures and buildings.In all of this framework, finance specialised in the hotel sector will serve as a fluidiser of operations: chains will move to light assets that imply less financial involvement. In addition, the profitability of the hotel sector will also attract non-specialised finance.