Ben specialises in the analysis of hotel markets across the Pacific region. Ben has ten years of experience in the real estate industry, and he began his property career at IPD, based in London.

 

There he worked across various specialties ranging from performance analysis to product management before focusing on research where Ben was tasked with the management index creation and cross border analysis. During his time at IPD, Ben was responsible for setting up the Pan-European Hotels Index which tracks hotel performance as an investment class across the region.

 

Returning to Sydney in 2013, Ben began management of the Australia and New Zealand commercial property indices for MSCI Real Estate before transitioning into the lead Client Consultant role for the APAC region.

 

 

I started working in the hotel industry back when I was in London and was responsible for setting up the MSCI Pan-European Hotel Index which measured the performance of hotels as an investment class across Europe. The idea of the index was to track performance and showcase hotel potential as a core investment class to investors who perhaps were unfamiliar with them. 

 

After moving back to Sydney, I took over the running of all the Australian Property Indices for MSCI which included the hotel index, before moving to my current role for CBRE and looking after hotel research.

 

 

I would say that presenting at the API’s National Conference last year was a career highlight as well as being published in their accompanying magazine. Earlier in the year, I had a feature article in Hotel Business in the United States which was also a bit of a coup for me.

 

 

The emergence of the sharing economy has posed a bit of a problem for hotels through sites such as Airbnb in some parts of the country. However, I don’t see them as a significant problem in the sense that they simply fill a gap in the market rather steal business away from hotels. I believe that the power of online travel agents (OTA’s) is more of a threat to the industry. Not being in full control of your own pricing strategy is potentially an impediment to growth. 

 

 

What I have noticed is that hotels as an investment class are no longer viewed as non-core. Traditionally there were only a handful of players who would be interested in hotels, but over the last few years as more investors saw the benefit hotels bring to their portfolio they decided to invest in the sector. This has helped bring hotels into the more mainstream as a property investment sector.

 

 

I would like to see more owners willing to bring lifestyle brands to Australia. We have seen lifestyle brands rolled out across the globe to compete with Airbnb and cater to the taste of millennials but as yet Australia hasn’t seen the same kind of proliferation. I believe the hotel industry needs to constantly evolve in order to keep up with the ever-changing tastes that people have. 

 

 

The Lotte Hotel Seoul would have to be my favourite hotel. It is an extremely elegant and well-appointed hotel and the evening buffet is magnificent. However, my favourite place for a holiday has to be the Maldives. Nowhere is there a better place on earth to sit back and relax as the world goes by.

 

Reach out to Ben via the below contact details.