Italy has been known to have a fragmented hotel industry with domestic families dominating hotel ownership, but that’s likely to change in the next decade.

Claudia Bisignani, head of hotels and hospitality for Italy at brokerage JLL, said a sector known for being highly independent and non-brand-affiliated is ready for a new chapter. In an interview with CoStar’s Hotel News Now, Bisignani said more international operators are looking to enter the Italian market. “Many owners see now is the perfect time to sell, and not with distress,” she said.

Hotel News Now>>

Planning barriers are inhibiting developers’ ability to deliver new life science space amid rising demand in the United Kingdon’s golden triangle between Oxford, Cambridge and London, with more than half of the area’s development pipeline still in the pre-planning phase, according to an analysis by brokerage Knight Frank.

About 56% of the area’s biotech development pipeline is yet to secure government planning approvals. The region already has a 1.85 million-square-foot shortfall of this type of space, and the brokerage said the problem is at risk of being exacerbated unless “urgent action” is taken to “remove the barriers” to building new facilities.

CoStar News>>

Paris-based hotel operator Experimental Group is planning to expand its luxury-focused holdings with three new acquisitions in France and Italy. 

The group’s real estate investment arm, backed by majority shareholder Brookfield Asset Management, has acquired hotels in Paris, Rome and the French ski village of Val d’Isère near the border with Italy. “Our ambition is to take the dust off the luxury hotel business, working in particular on the restaurant and cocktail offering,” said co-founder Romée de Goriainoff, whose firm now operates 14 upscale properties in cities that also include New York, London, Ibiza and Venice. 

Business Immo>>

Persistent high interest rates are becoming a challenge for open-ended real estate funds in Germany, with investment inflows declining as devaluation pressures create risks for more fund closures, according to an analysis by ratings firm Scope.

The firm said net inflows through the end of August for all funds that it analyzed totaled €1.3 billion, down from €4.7 billion and €6.6 billion in full-year 2022 and 2021, respectively. This year’s full-year balance of inflows and outflows should still be positive, but Scope analysts said it could turn negative in 2024. 

Thomas Daily>>

Canada grew by an annual average of 553,568 people between 2018 and 2022, but only 205,762 new homes were completed each year during that same period, according to a new report on the widening housing gap from the Fraser Institute research organization.

The situation was most dire in Ontario, where 240,000 new people arrived each year between 2018 and 2022, while housing completions only averaged 71,000. In British Columbia, the provincial population grew by around 86,000 per year during those years, well over double the annual 40,000 housing completions.

CoStar News>>

Amazon agreed to one of the San Francisco Bay Area’s largest industrial property deals of the decade in a sign of the e-commerce giant’s willingness to invest in strategic growth after downshifting investments in its real estate expansion.

The Seattle-based retailer and cloud computing business signed a deal to take over the entirety of a 1.23 million-square-foot warehouse at the Midway Commerce Center in Vacaville, California, an Amazon spokesperson confirmed to CoStar News. The building, now under construction, is the largest among three industrial properties being developed at the North Bay industrial park that will ultimately span more than 1.5 million square feet. 

CoStar News>>

This report was compiled from CoStar’s news publications in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, France and Germany.