UK hotel deals reached 100 transactions in 2025, a year-on-year uptick that Christie & Co. expects to sustain through 2026, according to the firm's managing director of international hotels, Carine Bonnejean.

Where is European deal flow concentrating?

Speaking on CoStar News Hotels' "The Upgrade: EMEA Hospitality News" podcast, Bonnejean named the United Kingdom, Spain and Italy as the three markets attracting the bulk of European hotel capital this year. Deal activity has held up despite two named disruptors: a war in the Middle East and sticky inflation across several European economies.

"Hotel investment continues, especially in the United Kingdom, Spain and Italy," Bonnejean said. Her framing positions those three countries as the regional safe-haven markets for cross-border capital while activity in other European geographies remains thinner.

Why is single-asset trading outpacing portfolios?

Bonnejean reported a "very healthy turnover of single-asset transactions" in the UK during 2025, alongside fewer portfolio mandates. The mix shift has direct implications for operators, lenders and brokers: pricing benchmarks are now set asset by asset rather than on bundled packages.

The 100-deal UK total represents a small increase on Christie & Co.'s recent annual run rate. "In the context of what we've done in the past few years, a very logical number, and a little bit up," Bonnejean said.

The composition matters for sellers of single trophy assets across London and the regions. With fewer portfolio mandates competing for capital, individual hotels face a deeper pool of active buyers, a structure that tends to tighten negotiating leverage for vendors and lengthen due-diligence timelines for purchasers.

Which Italian cities are next in line?

Milan, Rome and Venice continue to draw the highest investor interest in Italy. The pipeline is broadening. Bonnejean singled out Naples, Bologna and Verona as secondary markets now entering the active investment pool.

"We have seen more interest, more activity in secondary markets, when the market starts to — just as it did in the U.K. — get to a certain volume of transactions," she said. "[Investors] need to have more than just a few luxury assets in the principal cities, so we are seeing much more in secondary cities such as Naples, Bologna, Verona."

The shift mirrors a pattern already seen in the UK: once a market reaches a critical mass of prime deals, capital seeks additional supply in second-tier locations. For European operators weighing expansion, the implication is higher competition for Naples, Bologna and Verona sites and a wider set of conversion candidates.

What is the read on Spain?

Bonnejean described Spain as continuing its "success story" but declined to provide city-level or transaction-count breakdowns. The segment mirrors the UK and Italy in attracting sustained international capital, with regional Spanish data absent from her commentary.

What should investors watch through 2026?

The CoStar News Hotels podcast offered no specific transaction value, RevPAR benchmark or cap-rate guidance for any of the three named markets. Operators and investors should expect Christie & Co. to publish further UK, Italian and Spanish deal volumes as 2026 quarterly data is released, with the 2025 single-asset UK total of 100 transactions set to serve as the baseline reference for the year.