The impact of brand affiliation on asset values: the case of UK hotels

ABSTRACT Using the hedonic pricing method, we study more than 400 hotel transactions in the United Kingdom between 2000 and 2015 to determine the impact of brands on hotel market values. We initially find that hotel brands are negatively associated with hotel values in our sample. However, after controlling for endogeneity, we find that brand affiliation produces no significant impact on hotel transaction values. These results suggest that it is the characteristics of branded hotels, rather than the fact of being branded, that determine the transaction values. To the best of our knowledge, this is one of the first studies to examine the impact of brands on hotel values, and the first to account for the role of endogeneity when comparing the transaction value of branded and unbranded hotels.