Virginia Beach resort-area hotels prove good bet for investors

Accommodations throughout the region have suffered sizeable financial losses around the previous two several years. This has not been the circumstance for Virginia Seashore vacation resort region hotels, and the market’s robust performance ought to come as no surprise.

My associates at Grand Bay Advisors and I broker transactions with lodge models in the course of the United States — Marriott, Hilton, InterContinental Lodges Group and Decision Accommodations, to title a few. Even though a great deal of our organization is conducted outside the house Hampton Streets, it is gratifying for our Norfolk-based company to operate with inns listed here regionally as properly.

About the past couple a long time, our advisory group has shut on Virginia Seashore Oceanfront lodge bargains that signify much more than $60 million in product sales for our consumers. Despite the financial obstacle that countrywide lodge marketplaces have confronted above the past 10 years (which include all through the pandemic), the vacation resort space has held its own — and then some.

Considering that remaining recruited to Hampton Streets from Washington, D.C., in 1999 to open and operate the 1st Marriott-branded hotel at the Oceanfront, I identified that the current market was underserved and underpriced. The very first finances I introduced for the lodge was $1 million in earnings above what the owners were projecting. The resort hit my numbers through the 1st whole calendar year.

That is when I realized: Virginia Beach’s vacation resort hotel efficiency was a properly-kept mystery.

Most people may be unaware that soon after 9/11, when practically each and every hotel current market in the state contracted, two markets grew yr above 12 months. A single was Philadelphia, which grew at about 4%. The other was the Virginia Beach resort, which grew at about 11%.

The future good obstacle for the hotel industry arrived during the Excellent Recession, when just about each individual resort market in the U.S. contracted. The Virginia Seashore resort spot ongoing to develop 4-6% each calendar year from 2008 to 2011. It was not until eventually 2012 that growth last but not least slowed, to all-around 2-3%, owing to sequestration. Still, the resort market never expert a contraction during this period of time, whilst most other U.S. lodge markets did.

In latest memory, not until finally COVID struck did the Virginia Seaside resort encounter a contraction or calendar year-in excess of-year loss. Even then, the downturn was a lot more brief-lived and significantly less remarkable than most of the relaxation of the country.

During the pandemic’s early times, most U.S. resort marketplaces seasoned occupancy declines of 50% or more. Just 90 days soon after the March 2020 U.S. lockdown, Virginia Seashore location inns have been making 70-80% pre-pandemic occupancies. Only 15 months following the first lockdown, Virginia Beach’s high quality-branded resorts presently had been exceeding pre-pandemic occupancy amounts. All through the 12 months commencing in May 2021, high quality-branded Virginia Seaside place inns exceeded pre-pandemic occupancies in six or additional months. However, occupancy development was not the sole contributor to Virginia Beach’s outstanding overall performance during the pandemic. Average each day charge (ADR) was up in 2021 more than 2019 for lots of of Virginia Beach’s resort-location resorts.

Smith Journey Investigate, which publishes hotel knowledge for U.S. and international markets, rated the Norfolk/Virginia Beach front lodge market as No. 1 in terms of restoration in the course of considerably of the very first yr of the pandemic. Though Norfolk hotels are bundled in the functionality facts, the marketplaces vary greatly with the Oceanfront resort driving a lot of that beneficial information.

To more solidify the resort area’s name, various Oceanfront motels are closing in on the $200 Profits for every readily available home (RevPAR) mark. The hospitality field employs this metric to assess a property’s means to fill its offered rooms at many rates. A roughly $200 RevPAR is viewed generally in gateway markets, like Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and D.C.

We believe it will be only a issue of time — quite possibly this 12 months or subsequent — when Virginia Beach’s resort area fulfills that benchmark. As significant mixed-use assignments are produced at the resort’s North Conclusion around Neptune Park and to the south at Rudy Loop, a $200 RevPAR could develop into the regular for the nicest Oceanfront inns, these types of as the new Marriott Vacation resort Virginia Beach front Oceanfront property and the new Embassy Suites Hotel scheduled to open up inside the up coming yr.

Nevertheless some may well be impressed to find out that Virginia Seaside vacation resort inns outperform most non-gateway markets close to the U.S., my associates and I are not surprised. With quick obtain to people from the mid-Atlantic and Northeast, merged with a powerful company base and government and government contracting presence, the Oceanfront functions an excellent mix of small business and leisure that presents the sector positive aspects typically uncovered only in gateway markets.

Matthew Winston is the co-founder of Grand Bay Advisors, a nationwide full-provider hospitality asset administration, brokerage and consulting organization in Norfolk.