Actually, I heard it on the radio.  Specifically Michael Bull’s nationally syndicated weekly talk show about business and commercial real estate called The Commercial Real Estate Show. My few moments of fame, shared with Judy Hendrick, the CFO of Aimbridge Hospitality, and Mark Woodworth, President of Colliers PKF Hospitality Research, was actually very interesting and covered a wide range of topics relevant to the hospitality industry today.  If you want to hear any parts of the show, you can click here.  If you have less time, you can click here to go to the web site of the show and find some of the information we discussed.

The short summary is that the fundamentals of our industry remain positive and are improving.  With national occupancy levels and ADR levels moving up, there will be some pricing power for the hotel operators.  The transaction side will remain uneven, with large trophy assets on either coast getting the most attention.  There is cash, but insufficient and inadequate product, making the acquisition of the desirable asset a more competitive exercise. Still to come in 2014 and 2015 are some large CMBS pools, which, if used to release assets to market, would be a benefit for buyers.  I suppose we will have to watch those CMBS maturities more closely.