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Experienced valuer Mark Woolfitt re-joins Cushman & Wakefield from CBRE Hotels
London, 29 January 2024 – Global real estate services firm Cushman & Wakefield has further strengthened the specialist advice it provides to clients in the UK Hospitality sector by bringing Mark Woolfitt back to the firm.
An experienced hospitality valuation specialist who worked at Cushman & Wakefield for eight years earlier in his career, Woolfitt has re-joined the firm as a Partner having spent the last nine years as a Director in CBRE’s Hotels team.
Carl Ridgley, Head of Hospitality Valuation & Advisory at Cushman & Wakefield, said: “Mark is extremely well regarded and brings a huge amount of experience of providing valuation advice to the leading players in the UK hospitality industry. We’re delighted to welcome him back to Cushman & Wakefield where his expertise will significantly benefit our clients in making informed decisions.”
Cushman & Wakefield research revealed that more than £2.4bn of UK real estate was transacted by hotel investors in 2023. Over the last 12 months, Cushman & Wakefield’s hotel valuation team in the UK advised on several of the largest transactions that have occurred, valuing more than £1 billion for transactional purposes.
The overall annual volume of £2.4bn covered 149 properties across the UK, representing 14,255 individual rooms. While the annual volume of deals was down compared with 2022, the final quarter of 2023 (£745m) was 97% up on the same period 12 months earlier (£379m) with activity expected to continue to grow in 2024 as the debt market stabilises and demand growth continues. Operators, meanwhile, have enjoyed strong trading and overnight stays in hotels are projected to surpass 2019 levels in 2024.
Mark Woolfitt, Partner, Hospitality Valuation & Advisory at Cushman & Wakefield said: “Hospitality has proved its resilience as a sector which is reflected in operators’ buoyant trading performance. The sector remains attractive to investors because of the ability to enhance income in a higher inflation environment coupled with the long-term prospects of capitalising on structural shifts. Although the market experienced constrained deal flow last year, I expect to see an uptick in activity in 2024 as refinancing events take place and inflationary pressure subsides. I am looking forward to working with the team at Cushman & Wakefield and providing our clients with the specialist advice they need as the market evolves.”
Cushman & Wakefield, which provides a full range of services to hospitality developers, investors and operators, covered the outlook for the hospitality sector in its recent European Outlook 2024 report.
