CHICAGO—The US lodging sector has expanded for nine straight years, and usually, when a property type is that deep into a cycle, investors start shying away. But over the past year, the top buyers of US hotels have grown more interested, not less, in these properties, according to new research from JLL. The firm's North America Hotel Investor Sentiment Survey collected more than 5,000 data points from hotel investors to measure their expectations for 2018.

“During this recovery, we've had eight straight years of 2% GDP growth, which is anemic,” Arthur Adler, Americas chairman at JLL's hotels and hospitality group, tells GlobeSt.com. But hotels performed well throughout much of this stretch, and with GDP growth now hitting 3%, experts believe strong RevPAR trends will continue in 2018.

The pool of buyers has also grown more diverse. Public REITs, for example, are still out there looking for deals. Typically, Adler says, these hotel-specific REITs buy early during a recovery and then put a hold on new investments. “For public REITs to come in, this deep into a cycle, that has not happened before.”