% of Total Transaction Volume
100 %
90 %
80 %
70 %
60 %
50 %
40 %
30 %
20 %
10 %
0 %
Proportion of Hotel Acquisitions by Buyer Type
24 %
11 %
5 %
13 %
10 %
37 %
20 %
10 %
12 %
12 %
11 %
32 %
2 %
7 %
11 %
13 %
15 %
50 %
1 %
2 % 7 %
5 % 5 %
11 %
2 % 6 %
63 %
2018 2019 Jan 2020 - Mar 2020 Apr 2020 - H1 2020
Private Equity Hotel Owner / Operator Off-Shore Other * Developer HNWI REIT
capital raised . Prior to the pandemic in early 2020 , investors had earmarked record levels of capital to deploy into lodging , much of which was unspent before the world economy slowed due to COVID-19 . Plus , private equity firms raised additional capital through “ virtual roadshows ” during the height of the pandemic through the summer and fall of 2020 , hoping to capitalize on upcoming opportunities by the expectation of distressed sales .
This availability of capital has resulted in private equity as the dominant hotel buyer , accounting for nearly two-thirds of hotel purchases in the first half of 2021 .
The lack of distress so far , coupled with the high amounts of dry powder , has resulted in investors targeting assets in growth markets , like Sunbelt cities that have been net job adders throughout the pandemic , or markets that have best weathered COVID-related disruption , which are mostly leisure-reliant cities .
One segment of the hospitality industry least affected over the past 16 months is leisure travel , especially drive-to leisure travel . However , as airline travel ramps back up , fly-to leisure destinations are posting strong growth . TSA reported about 2.1 million throughput travelers in the United States most recently on July 19 , 2021 , or more than three times the 695,330 travelers reported in 2020 . These increases leave us much closer to prepandemic levels , with 2.6 million travelers reported on July 19 , 2019 .
The result is a bounce-back in leisure-dominant markets that investors predicted at this time last year , although the recovery ’ s velocity has exceeded expectations . Some cities , which benefit from leisure demand , are beating 2019 results over the past two months . From the last full week of May through the week ended July 17 , Smith Travel Research data shows that average weekly RevPAR in Miami over that period is up 143.7 % compared to the same period in 2019 . Tampa is up 126.8 %, Phoenix is up 119.2 % and Virginia Beach / Norfolk is up 112.1 % during this period . Even the Island of Oahu , which is dependent on leisure travel but extremely hard to reach by car , is experiencing a rebound due to the pent-up leisure demand with trailing weekly average RevPAR at over approximately 80 % of 2019 levels .
Conversely , cities that rely more on corporate , group and / or international travel are experiencing slower recoveries . Using the same data over the same time periods , New York is experiencing RevPAR that is only 55.9 % of that realized in 2019 ; Chicago is slightly better at 56.3 %, but Boston is posting numbers only 47.8 % of their sametime-2019 performance , with San Francisco ’ s figure being 41.4 %.
Investors are trying to capitalize on these trends , purchasing unique , high-quality assets . Sunstone ’ s purchase of Montage Healdsburg in April 2021 and Host ’ s purchase of Baker ’ s Cay in Key Largo in July 2021 are bets on changing consumer travel patterns that values safe , domestic travel or high-growth markets that are adding jobs at an
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