Hotels in Strasbourg and the Grand Est: selling and investing

Strasbourg has a feature few French cities share: part of its hotel demand is set by calendars it does not control. Sessions of the European Parliament, meetings of the Council of Europe, hearings at the European Court of Human Rights and the Advent season fill the city on dates known well in advance. Around it, Alsace and the rest of the Grand Est region have a dense network of independent hotels, many of them family-owned, and many now reaching the point of succession.

A city run on outside calendars

The European institutions

Strasbourg is the official seat of the European Parliament. Plenary sessions are held there according to a calendar published each year. During those weeks, MEPs, assistants, officials, journalists and lobbyists all arrive at once, from Monday to Thursday. The Council of Europe and the European Court of Human Rights add steadier demand: delegations, lawyers, experts and official visitors.

Buyers read this demand closely. It is predictable, which makes pricing easier to manage. It is also concentrated, which leaves quiet weeks between sessions. The trading accounts of a hotel in the European quarter or the city centre only make sense when set against that calendar, week by week. An annual RevPAR figure tells you very little here.

Advent and the rest of the year

Strasbourg’s Christmas market is among the oldest in Europe. Throughout Advent it draws leisure visitors from France, Germany, Switzerland and further afield. Colmar, Kaysersberg, Riquewihr and many villages hold their own. For a good number of Alsatian hotels, December carries a heavy share of the year.

The rest of the year relies on business travel (the university, hospitals, public bodies, companies across the metropolitan area), on congresses and trade fairs in the Wacken district, and on cultural tourism. The Grande Île and the Neustadt are UNESCO World Heritage sites.

The Rhine

Tourism along the Rhine takes several forms. River cruises call at Strasbourg, but passengers sleep on board, so their contribution to hotels is mostly indirect. Stays on both sides of the river, taking in Kehl, the Black Forest, Baden-Baden or the large leisure parks of Baden, do more for Alsatian hotels, which serve as a base.

Colmar, the wine route and the wider Grand Est

The Alsace wine route runs through wine villages where hotels are often family businesses: a few dozen rooms, a winstub or restaurant, sometimes a spa added later. Colmar, with its old town and the Unterlinden museum, attracts leisure guests all year, with peaks in spring, at harvest time and in December. The Vosges add summer hiking and a more modest winter season.

The Grand Est is more than Alsace. Reims and the Champagne area live on wine tourism and on business travel generated by the Champagne houses. The Champagne hillsides, houses and cellars are a World Heritage site. Nancy with its Place Stanislas, Metz with the Centre Pompidou-Metz and Mulhouse with its museums each have their own draw. Northern Lorraine also looks towards Luxembourg.

For access, the LGV Est high-speed line links Strasbourg, Metz, Nancy and Reims to Paris. Strasbourg-Entzheim airport and the EuroAirport Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg serve the south of the region.

The border: guests on one side, buyers on the other

The German and Swiss borders matter twice. First for demand: German and Swiss guests come for weekends, food and the Christmas markets, and they are attentive to value for money. Second among potential buyers: German, Swiss or Luxembourg operators and investors take an interest in assets they already know as guests.

A foreign buyer asks different questions from a local one. They want to understand the French commercial lease regime, the hospitality collective agreement, the tax treatment of the deal, and often the local law of Alsace-Moselle. The documentation has to work for them: a clear information memorandum, adjusted figures with explanations, an orderly data room.

Family hotels: what a buyer looks at

Much of the hotel stock in the Grand Est belongs to families who have run it for one or more generations. A sale often happens because no one in the family will take over. The same questions come up each time.

• Reliance on the owner. When the owner is also the chef, the host or the public face of the hotel, buyers ask what remains once they leave. An organised handover and a management team in place affect value.
• The restaurant’s share. In a hotel-restaurant, food and beverage can account for a large part of revenue and reputation. Buyers analyse it separately, with its own margins.
• Property and business. The property, or murs, and the business, or fonds de commerce, are sometimes held by different family members, or jointly. Choosing between selling property and business together, the business alone or the shares first requires agreement among them. The guide Asset deal or share deal sets out the options.
• Deferred works. A well-kept hotel may still have postponed compliance works, a room refurbishment or a new boiler. Buyers will cost these and deduct them. It is better to have documented them first.
• The accounts. Family salaries, staff accommodation, mixed expenses: reported EBE (the French measure of EBITDA) has to be adjusted, item by item, to show the business as a third party would take it over.

Local law, heritage and old buildings

In the Bas-Rhin, Haut-Rhin and Moselle départements, several rules of local law still apply. Land registration goes through the livre foncier, a register kept by the court, which has practical effects on how deeds are prepared. Local employment law also has its own features, such as additional public holidays. The notaire and the lawyer will explain what this means for each transaction.

The historic centres of Strasbourg, Colmar and many villages are protected. Any alteration to an old building, whether an extension, an added storey or a new façade, is in principle subject to the opinion of the Architecte des Bâtiments de France and to local planning rules. Half-timbered buildings raise their own fire safety and accessibility questions under the rules for buildings open to the public (ERP). Buyers will look into these during due diligence. The file should answer them in advance.

Selling where everyone knows everyone

In a mid-sized town or along the wine route, a sale does not stay secret for long once it circulates. Suppliers, competitors, staff and regular guests all know each other. A rumour can trigger departures just before the Christmas season, or a drop in group bookings.

A few rules follow:

• no published file, no listing, nothing on property portals
• a teaser whose anonymity is tested by someone who knows the local market, since a room count, a category and a village are sometimes enough to identify a hotel
• an NDA before any information is shared, and two-stage disclosure when staff must not know: the hotel’s identity is only revealed at the visit or the letter of intent
• visits outside busy periods, with no contact with staff
• a timetable that avoids signing or announcing in the middle of Advent

The guide Selling your hotel without disrupting its operations covers these precautions in detail.

How we work

We act for the seller only, under an exclusive mandate, and we read the business before the bricks. The file is presented off-market, one buyer at a time, to qualified members of our Circle whose criteria match the asset. Our approach is described on the Selling a hotel page.