By Elena Vasquez

Global hotel investment volume will rise between 15% and 25% in 2025, according to a forecast from JLL (Jones Lang LaSalle Incorporated), the commercial real estate services firm headquartered in Chicago. The projection points to a recovery in transaction activity after a thin deal environment across lodging real estate in 2023 and 2024.

The headline figure is a percentage band, not a dollar value. JLL's release positions the increase against muted prior-year activity, framing the forecast as a recovery signal rather than an expansion call. The firm did not publish an absolute transaction total in the public summary.

Who moves the money

The forecast's first-order audience is the seller side of hotels: brand operators including Marriott International, Hilton Worldwide, IHG, Accor and Choice Hotels, plus third-party management companies and the institutional owners behind them.

JLL's hospitality capital markets team tracks pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, REITs (real estate investment trusts — tax-advantaged vehicles that hold and trade portfolios of income-producing real estate), and private equity as the four buyer pools most likely to set the year's pricing.

The firm expects regional variation. Asia Pacific is positioned as a higher-growth region for inbound capital, while the Americas and Europe tilt toward portfolio recycling from institutions looking to lighten hospitality exposure.

JLL did not name specific operators or individual transactions in the public release.

What the forecast means for distribution

Higher transaction volume does not directly book rooms. It restructures the inventory that the booking channel competes for. Each switch from one flag to another resets the channel mix and revises commission rates.

Flag transitions shift the split between direct site, OTA (online travel agency — Booking Holdings, Expedia Group and regional counterparts), brand.com, GDS (Global Distribution System — Amadeus, Sabre, Travelport, wiring bookings from travel agents to hotel inventory), and tour operators.

For OTAs, GDS providers and bed banks (wholesale hotel inventory pools resold to tour operators), flag transitions shift which inventory sits inside preferred agreements and which falls under rate parity clauses (contractual rules requiring a hotel to offer the same room rate across all channels).

Renovation cycles compress available inventory during soft openings, lifting rate in the affected comp set (Competitive Set — a peer group of hotels used for performance benchmarking) until rooms return to the market.

When the cap rate (the ratio of net operating income to property price) falls, buyers pay more per dollar of current cash flow. That tightens the cushion owners have for franchise fees, marketing contributions, and technology assessments.

How does the 2025 band compare to prior cycles?

JLL tracks hotel transaction volume across cycles. The 15%-25% increase applied to recent-year volume represents a recovery move, though the firm did not publish an absolute base figure in the release.

The forecast competes with parallel outlooks from rival brokerages. CBRE's Investment Advisory team and Cushman & Wakefield's Hotels group publish their own annual views, though matching forecasts across the three firms have not yet been tabled in the same calendar quarter.

JLL's share of hotel investment brokerage revenue is undisclosed in the public release.

What to watch next

Midyear 2025 transaction tallies from JLL and CBRE will test the forecast band. A downward revision in the second or third quarter would suggest debt costs, refinancing pressure, and the bid-ask spread (the gap between buyers' offer prices and sellers' asking prices) have not closed fast enough to bring sellers to market.

A tightening toward 25% would confirm the refinancing wall (loan maturities coming due across hotel portfolios) is forcing supply onto the block.