Strategic counsel for hotels, resorts, and branded residences — feasibility, operator selection, brand positioning, and repositioning, all from an owner's vantage point.
Festinger Advisors provides strategic hospitality advisory for owners, investors, lenders, and family offices weighing the decisions that define an asset's value. We work above the day-to-day — testing feasibility, selecting and structuring operators, sharpening brand positioning, and shaping the repositioning thesis before capital is committed.
Robert Festinger brings more than 25 years of hospitality and commercial real estate experience, including direct involvement in the $375 million acquisition of the Trump International Hotel at 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue and its conversion into the Waldorf Astoria Washington DC. That owner-side perspective shapes how we underwrite a concept, negotiate a management contract, and judge whether a story will hold up at exit.
We pressure-test demand, positioning, and returns before commitment — separating a defensible thesis from optimism, and grounding every assumption in market evidence and operating reality.
We identify, vet, and negotiate management companies and brands, structuring agreements that protect ownership economics and hold operators accountable to a clear business plan.
We define where an asset sits in its market — segment, rate, and guest profile — aligning brand, product, and pricing to the demand the property can realistically capture.
We shape the case for repositioning, from scope and sequencing to capital intensity, weighing each move against the return it is expected to produce at the asset level.
We advise on timing, packaging, and positioning ahead of a sale, presenting the asset to maximize value and clearing the questions buyers will ask before they ask them.
We represent ownership across the lifecycle — feasibility to exit — bringing institutional discipline to owners who expect their hospitality assets to perform like investments.
Asset management is the ongoing oversight of an operating hotel against its business plan. Hospitality advisory works earlier and more strategically — testing feasibility, selecting operators, defining brand positioning, and shaping repositioning or disposition decisions. One protects performance day to day; the other sets the strategy those decisions follow.
Engage an advisor before major inflection points: acquisition, brand or operator change, a renovation decision, or a planned sale. Early counsel sharpens the thesis, exposes weak assumptions, and structures agreements correctly the first time. Bringing an advisor in after commitments are made narrows the options and raises the cost of correction.
Yes. We identify candidate operators and brands, evaluate them against the asset's positioning and ownership's goals, and lead the negotiation. The objective is alignment — a management agreement that protects owner economics, sets clear performance standards, and gives ownership real recourse when execution falls short of plan.
Festinger Advisors provides advisory and consulting services to owners, investors, lenders, family offices, and hospitality stakeholders. Real estate brokerage services, including acquisitions, dispositions, leasing, landlord representation, and tenant representation, are offered through We Are Miami LLC, a licensed Florida real estate brokerage.