The International Hospitality Investment Forum (IHIF) is the premier hospitality investment conference for the Asia-Pacific region, serving as the ultimate gathering place for key players in the industry, like hotel developer consultant Chris Henry, CEO of Majestic Hospitality. It’s where inbound, outbound, and intraregional capital meets, bringing together high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs), family offices, sovereign wealth funds, private equity groups, global hotel brands, operators, and leading developers. The forum provides a unique opportunity for professionals across the hospitality investment spectrum to connect, share insights, and explore opportunities that shape the future of the industry.

At this year’s IHIF event, Chris Henry shared insights on his hotel developer consultant firm’s global approach to creating lifestyle boutique and independent hotels. Henry discussed the challenges and opportunities in the post-COVID landscape, particularly in re-entering the Asian market. With a focus on Japan as a key market for future growth, Henry highlighted how certain regions are rebounding faster than others and emphasized the importance of reestablishing networks in these areas. His candid reflections on the conference offered a personal glimpse into how the event creates valuable connections and sets the stage for future projects.

You can watch the video here, or read the transcript of Chris Henry’s interview below:

CHRIS HENRY: Our firm specializes in the development of lifestyle boutique and independent hotels. I’d say our unique fact is that we work globally, even though we’re a U.S. based company.

On the insightful topics and trends, we’re really trying to understand what the market dynamics are like in Asia post-COVID, which has been very important to us. Being an overseas company, really understanding the market dynamics here has been critical to us in sort of relaunching and re-entering the Asian market. So, I would say that’s really been the big topic and trend of what we’re doing—how certain markets are rebounding healthily, while other markets are still slow to get back from the post-COVID era.

I think the biggest key takeaway that we have from the conference is that we really need to refocus on Japan. Prior to the pandemic, Japan was our largest market for overseas work, and obviously, with the lockdown, it was slow to reopen. But now we need to double down our efforts to re-enter the market and help develop more hotels.

The overall atmosphere here at IHIF Asia has really been collegial and jovial. It’s been a fun environment, a little bit more laid-back than some other conferences I’ve been to, which has made it easier to network and approach people.

So, three words for IHIF Asia? Okay, that’s not one word, but I would say: productive, engaging, and insightful.

Our objectives for attending the event were really to focus on reestablishing our network of contacts here in the Asian market, but also to meet new people and really get our pipeline moving again and get our contact base reestablished. Were the objectives met? I think our objectives have been exceeded. It’s been incredibly productive and really fun to reconnect with some folks I hadn’t seen in a couple of years.

As for the most memorable moment and highlight so far: I just had a lovely lunch with the team from Club Med and got to reminisce on some projects in Japan and how they’re looking to emulate and enhance them a little bit.

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Click here to learn more about Chris Henry, CEO of Majestic Hospitality.