Independents hotels vs chains in 2026: who wins?

Maximising hotel value over the holding period

A hotel is an investment first, and someone has to protect its value for twenty years. Rastko Djordjevic, Managing Director of JLL Asset Management EMEA, joins Luc Boschmans to explain what hotel asset management really is: maximising an asset's value across the whole holding period, not running the day to day. He separates owner, operator, and advisor, then shows the work through real cases, a renovation phased to the Olympics that lifted suite ADR by more than 40 percent, a hotel taken standalone during COVID, and how he matches a general manager to the moment a property is in. Follow The Future of Hospitality for weekly insights into hospitality, hotels, and guest experience. Disclaimer: This podcast shares stories, experiences, and opinions from hosts and guests. They are personal perspectives only and not statements of fact or official advice from The Future of Hospitality

Reposition with the exit in mind

The fastest repositioning plans are built around the exit from day one. Learn how a five-year hold, direct operations, and a deliberate no-brand decision turned a Barcelona hotel into a leisure-led asset. In this episode Luc Boschmans interviews Emmanuel Dissez, head of asset management for Schroders Hotels, and Dario Filippone, one of the asset managers at Schroders Capital who has overseen the Grand Hotel Central in Barcelona since 2021. - Build value against a defined hold period so the five-year story becomes a sale - Keep optionality by not attaching a global brand, the flexibility the next owner pays for - Take a hotel to direct operations to gain control over the repositioning - Read the operation, not just the P&L, because the numbers are always late Emmanuel and Dario share how they moved RGI from 64 to 108 and brought the hotel to market with the exit in mind. Follow The Future of Hospitality for weekly insights into hospitality, hotels, and guest experience. Disclaimer: This podcast shares stories, experiences, and opinions from hosts and guests. They are personal perspectives only and not statements of fact or official advice from The Future of Hospitality

Pricing strategy, revenue teams, and where AI actually helps

AI does not fix a bad pricing strategy, it just runs it faster. Roz Hunter and Charles Pinard, pricing and revenue-management consultants at Simon-Kucher, break down how they read a revenue team from the inside and why most pricing problems are about trust and alignment, not the systems. - Cut the morning screen count from eight to ten systems down to one source of truth and two screens - Escape the one-brain trap where the whole company waits to be told to raise or lower prices - Treat a room as a room on a date, so peak weeks like July or Christmas can carry a far higher price - Build the price increase into the start of the booking curve instead of starting high and crashing it - Use AI to challenge your thinking, with human oversight, because a black box is as bad as no box Follow The Future of Hospitality for weekly insights into hospitality, hotels, and guest experience. Disclaimer: This podcast shares stories, experiences, and opinions from hosts and guests. They are personal perspectives only and not statements of fact or official advice from The Future of Hospitality

Reposition before rebrand: a Brussels hotel asset case

The rebrand only adds value once the segmentation and product are fixed. Learn how a bold wholesaler cut rebuilt rate quality and moved RGI from 81 to 110. In this episode Luc Boschmans interviews Sophie Richard, who leads European asset management for M&L Hospitality and chairs HAMA Europe. - Cut a low-rated wholesaler base, accepting 13 percent occupancy loss to rebuild higher-quality rate - Sequence segmentation and product before rebranding so the brand change adds value - Treat aging product as a cleanliness and rate problem, not just a renovation line - Review segmentation yearly rather than every five years Sophie shares the full Brussels Midi case, from the segmentation cut to the four-star classification. Follow The Future of Hospitality for weekly insights into hospitality, hotels, and guest experience. Disclaimer: This podcast shares stories, experiences, and opinions from hosts and guests. They are personal perspectives only and not statements of fact or official advice from The Future of Hospitality

Sustainability in hotel operations: what works and what fails

Sustainability lives or dies by what guests actually do. Learn which initiatives survive daily operations and which quietly fail after a pilot. In this episode Cesar Wurm interviews Gavin Fraser, Remco Groenhuijzen, Chrys Filimegkas, and Eric Van Lambalgen, four hotel leaders working across operations, finance, and sustainability in Amsterdam. - Account for behavior, since keycard heating and biodegradable products fail on how guests use them - Chase fast ROI, with opt-out room cleaning saving roughly 200,000 euros a year - Treat certifications as a diagnostics tool rather than a sales label - Focus upstream on scope 3 with suppliers, the largest share of the footprint The group tests whether sustainability in operations delivers real impact or stays an illusion. Follow The Future of Hospitality for weekly insights into hospitality, hotels, and guest experience. Disclaimer: This podcast shares stories, experiences, and opinions from hosts and guests. They are personal perspectives only and not statements of fact or official advice from The Future of Hospitality