Hotel Development in 2025: What to Get Right, What to Watch Out For, and How to Stay Ahead

Fohlio is a comprehensive specification and procurement tool that helps users take on larger projects. Empower teams to open stores faster and improve their operational workflow with specification, prototyping, estimating, and procuring tools. 

As hotel development gets more unpredictable—ballooning costs, cautious lenders, and travelers who want more from less—nailing the process is no longer optional. It’s survival.

At HD Expo 2025, Jonathan Falik (Founder & CEO, JF Capital Advisors) delivered a deep dive into how hotel development is evolving—and what every stakeholder needs to do differently. This recap unpacks his most important takeaways, paired with actionable insights and tech-powered strategies to help you deliver.

1. Development Isn’t Linear. Your Tools Shouldn’t Be Either.

Hotel development isn’t your average real estate project. You’re juggling zoning, environmental impact, brand fit, entitlement risk, and franchise requirements—often simultaneously.

That means overlapping stages, competing stakeholder priorities, and zero room for misalignment. Site selection isn’t just about location—it’s also about whether the brand fits the market, whether the entitlements will pass, and whether your feasibility report will hold water six months from now.

And by the time you get to design and budgeting? You’re already deep in third-party negotiations and franchise commitments.

Fohlio helps untangle this web by centralizing your design specs, brand standards, and documentation in one live environment. Everyone—developers, designers, brand reps—works from the same page. Real-time collaboration means fewer surprises, faster approvals, and a clean trail of accountability.

2. Financing in 2025 Is a Test of Discipline

Banks are cautious, and for good reason. Most will only finance 50–55% of project costs. That leaves you with mezz debt, equity partners, or alternative funding—and none of them are cheap.

With inflation still pushing material and labor costs, lenders are combing through every line item. They want to see sponsor credibility, airtight market analysis, and a budget you can defend to the decimal.

Fohlio’s budgeting tools make that easy. Track cost evolution. Manage vendor quotes. Generate detailed, transparent breakdowns that boost lender confidence—without building 20 spreadsheets just to explain how you got to your FF&E number.

Read how better data management helps avoid budget creep

3. GMP Contracts Won’t Save You From Scope Creep

Guaranteed Maximum Price (GMP) contracts can control construction costs—but they don’t cover everything. FF&E, OS&E, design fees, and pre-opening expenses? Often excluded. And change orders? Still your problem if they originate from the ownership side.

Fohlio helps you stay ahead of changes by tracking every specification, document, and revision in one place. Whether you're swapping out a fixture or rescoping a room type, everyone sees the change and its impact—immediately. No buried emails, no surprise invoices.

Here’s what spec errors actually cost—and why proactive documentation isn’t optional.

4. Brand and Management Agreements Are a Minefield—If You Let Them Be

The brand you choose can make or break long-term performance. But franchise and management agreements come with strings: royalty fees, performance metrics, PIPs, exclusivity zones—you name it.

What’s negotiable? What’s locked in? What’s going to mess with your margins two years from now?

Fohlio gives you side-by-side visibility into brand standards, compliance checklists, and past project data. You get a clear picture of what each partner demands—and what it’s going to take to deliver.

Master PIP fulfillment with these 9 strategies

5. The Market Is Cooling—But That’s Not Always a Bad Thing

RevPAR is crawling, not climbing—less than 2% annual growth. Real RevPAR is still below pre-COVID levels. Hotel REITs are trading at a discount. Supply growth is slowing down through 2029.

And costs? Labor, insurance, healthcare—up across the board, especially in cities and disaster-prone areas.

But for developers with vision, this is opportunity territory. Acquisition targets are plentiful, and the slowdown gives breathing room to optimize the pipeline.

Fohlio’s scenario planning tools let you simulate procurement costs and timeline risks—before you commit. Benchmark across your portfolio. Dial in a cost structure that protects your ROI even in soft markets.

6. The Guest Has Changed. The Workforce Has, Too.

Work-life blending isn’t going away. “Bleisure” is the new normal. Guests want flexible rooms, quiet zones for Zoom calls, and better tech experiences. Meanwhile, the labor pool is shrinking. Hospitality workers are moving to industries with fewer weekend shifts and better benefits.

Hotels in some cities are even being repurposed for alternative housing, skewing demand data and upending long-term planning.

Fohlio lets you plan for agility: source adaptive FF&E, manage spec options for multi-use spaces, and quickly pivot your design programming when the market shifts.

Explore how digital tools are transforming pre-opening PIPs

7. Smarter Execution Starts With a Smarter System

The days of treating hotel development as a waterfall project are gone. Today, it’s more like conducting an orchestra—with different players entering at different times, each with their own tempo.

Fohlio gives you the control panel to conduct that orchestra.
One platform. All your specs. All your costs. All your collaborators. Working in sync.

Ready to Build Smarter?

Whether you're managing five properties or fifty, Fohlio helps you:

• Enforce brand compliance from day one

• Track every cost, vendor, and change

• Build documentation that wins lender approval

• Collaborate seamlessly with design, procurement, and ownership

• Stay flexible, focused, and future-ready

Let’s talk. Book a call today and see how Fohlio powers your next hotel project—from dirt to doors open.

Fohlio is a comprehensive specification and procurement tool that helps users take on larger projects. Empower teams to open stores faster and improve their operational workflow with specification, prototyping, estimating, and procuring tools.