Since joining Colliers International in February 2014 as National Director of Hotel Transaction Services, Gus has transacted nearly $900 million in hotel sales with a number of record breaking results. Some of these sales include The Westin in Sydney for $445.3 million, Bell City in Preston, Victoria for $142.9 million and Travelodge in Docklands, Melbourne for $107 million.

Gus has worked across all facets of the hotel industry for over 20 years including operations, consultancy, asset management and property investment. Prior to Colliers, Gus was responsible for the sell down of Australia’s largest hotel group, TAHL, CEO for Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels Asia Pacific and Head of Asset Management for their Australian practice.

Gus has represented groups such as GIC on some of Australia’s most prestigious hotels, including Shangri-La Sydney, Park Hyatt Melbourne and the Westin Sydney. 

How did you get into the hotels industry?

I had left school and started studying a marketing degree at university. I lived across the road from a pub and after applying for some casual work, started there, picking up glasses and cleaning ash-trays (am I showing my age here ? This was in the days you could still smoke in pubs). I worked my way up to Assistant Manager and thought there could be a career in the hospitality sector, so picked up an additional major at Uni to study one of the first Hospitality Management degrees back in the early 1990’s. At the end of my course I was employed by Ted Wright at The Regent Hotel (now the Four Seasons) as a Hotel Management Trainee – from that time on, I have always worked in the sector – operations, consultancy, insolvency, ownership and now as a hotel broker.

What are some of your career highlights from your time in the industry?

I guess what I have enjoyed most about my career is the variety and constant opportunity to learn. In every job I have done, there have been a number of highlights – at Arthur Andersen it was working on the restructuring of Brunei’s largest company and overseeing the ongoing works on what is now the Empire Hotel. At Toga, it was working with a fabulous team to help expand the portfolio. At JLL it was the opportunity to asset management some of the best hotels in the country, while at TAHL, it was being part of a team that turned the business around and provided the shareholders with a healthy return. Having joined Colliers International just 3 years ago, I am proud of the fact that we have built a team from scratch and are now seriously challenging our competitors in the hotel brokerage and consultancy space.

What are the biggest issues facing the hotel industry at the moment?

The biggest challenge in our sector is to ensure we grow our markets in a financially responsible and sustainable fashion. For the sector to mature into a core, institutional grade property asset class, all the stakeholders need to generate stable returns. Too often, ill-advised, short-term planning leads to oversupply in markets, that takes years to recover from and scares away fresh capital and debt providers from investing in our sector. Council’s and government bodies need to ensure long term planning around the number of hotels they are approving, and will increasingly need to have regard to the impact of the sharing economy (AirBnB) when setting guidelines around future supply needs – without this, the hotel space will continue to be viewed as a volatile, alternate asset class.

How has the industry changed in the time you have been involved with it?

While large, 4 and 5 star hotels were once the domain of trophy hunters, over the past 10-15 years, we have seen increasing levels of investment from a broader investor pool – private equity, funds management, sovereign wealth funds, insurance companies and large conglomerates have all invested in this space. This is the sign of a healthy sector which is generating solid returns. I hope that this will continue into the future and that the planning regime noted in my point above avoids some of the mistakes of the past.

The rise of the Online Travel Agents has obviously been one of the more significant changes in recent years. The initial aim of using these channels to sell last minute unsold inventory has morphed into the main method of marketing hotel rooms today. It has in many ways commoditised hotels and de-powered hotel branding. Hotel operating companies are now striving to position themselves to ensure they maintain relevance in the future – an interesting challenge that will flush out many changes in the future.

What changes would you like to see over the next two to five years in the industry?

The consolidation that we are seeing in the major international brands (e.g. Marriott and Starwood) is designed to counter the increasing power of the Online Travel Agencies and the sharing economy – while I see this has a positive step toward wrestling back control, my concern is that this power will skew the owner/operator relationship away from its current position of equilibrium to favour operators. This may discourage future investment into hotel development if it results in lower return for investors.

What is your favourite hotel and holiday destination? 

I have always loved the Park Hyatt Melbourne. The heavy use of stunning marble throughout the public areas and rooms creates a “wow” factor we don’t often see in new build hotels these days. As a holiday destination, my favourite place on earth is Lord Howe Island – its diverse range of fauna and flora, combination of calm lagoon and great surf beaches and the magnificent climb to the top of Mount Gower makes this a very unique spot and a must for anyone’s bucket list.