The role of hotels in mixed asset portfolios : revisiting the asset-heavy versus asset-light debate

This paper examines the role of hotels in Markowitz’s mixed assets portfolios. First, we compare the efficient frontiers of pure-play asset portfolios, namely S&P indices, and hotels (REITs, REOCs and NCREIF). Further, we break the hotel stocks into asset-heavy versus asset-light categories. We find that mixing pure-play hotel assets into the portfolio pushes the frontier favourably in the north-west direction. Contrary to popular expectation, we find that asset-heavy hotel enterprises are favoured compared to asset-light stocks