住宿与邮轮市场：供需分化下的行业格局研究

Best of Times, Worst of Times: Lodging & Cruise - if they come,will they build them? “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”. The famous opening line of CharlesDickens’ ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ captures a period of contradiction: the French aristocracyindulging in opulence and privilege, the peasantry experiencing poverty and oppression.While 2026 is thankfully not 18th century France, shifting class dynamics remain moretopical than ever, from the US K-shaped economy to the squeezed Chinese middle class.Travel, particularly leisure, has been a key beneficiary of the K-shaped recovery, with spendincreasingly concentrated among higher-income cohorts. The sector is also exhibitingits own internal K-shape: from January–May 2026, US hotel revenues grew 9.1% in theluxury segment while declining 2.7% in economy. Similar divergence is evident acrosscruise and airline markets. In cruise and aviation, supply is responding in line with marketequilibrium theory, with high-end capacity expanding to meet demand. Hotel development,however, tells a different story. Despite strong demand signals, supply growth has beenmore pronounced in Upscale through Midscale than in Luxury. This raises a key question:are developers anticipating a different demand outlook, or is demand just one of severalfactors guiding decisions? Elevated financing, construction, and labor costs may beconstraining the economics of luxury projects, offsetting revenue upside. Two implicationsfollow. First, luxury hotels are likely to see continued tailwinds, given constrained supplyrelative to demand. Second, operators underexposed to luxury may increasingly turn toM&A to reposition, pointing to potential deal activity ahead. Richard J. Clarke, FCA+44 20 7676 6850richard.clarke@bernsteinsg.com Niall Mitchelson+44 20 7676 7144niall.mitchelson@bernsteinsg.com Lasith Siriwardana+44 20 7550 2191lasith.siriwardana@bernsteinsg.com Sabrina Blanc+33 1 42 13 47 32sabrina.blanc@bernsteinsg.com The K shape is very easy to spot in travel.The K-shape is very evident across recentcompany reports. In 1Q26, Park Hyatt grew RevPAR 10.3% versus 2.2% at Hyatt Place(mainstream). In cruising, Viking (luxury) delivered 9.5% yield growth, while Norwegian(more mainstream) saw yields decline 0.3%. Delta similarly reported premium revenuegrowth at roughly twice the pace of total ticket revenue. These are all pre World-Cup, whichare likely to supercharge the trend in the US - in the WC June 14, Luxury Chain RevPARgrew 17.4%. Vertically integrated capital is flowing into luxury, while fragmented models lag.In sectors where operators control growth, investment is clearly targeting high-end demand. Luxury cruise capacity is growing at >10% in 2026, with the “yacht” segmentup 24%, well ahead of overall industry growth (4%). Similarly, Air France’s premiumcapacity has outpaced economy by ~10% since 2019. By contrast, where third partiesdrive development, the opposite holds: Upscale through Midscale continue to outgrowluxury footprints and pipeline data suggests this continues. This likely reflects structuralconstraints. Luxury hotels require prime locations, whereas mainstream hotels are moreflexible and are expanding into new regional demand drivers such as US infrastructure.They are also far cheaper and faster to build, while luxury assets are capital-intensive,operationally complex, and involve multi-year development cycles. Developers prioritizereturns and speed. A similar dynamic exists in restaurants, where capital favors $500kWingstop builds over $8m Ruth’s Chris, regardless of demand trends. The result shouldsupport Luxury Hotel RevPAR for years, while also driving M&A as a faster route to increaseluxury exposure. Recent deals (Lefay, Standard, Graduate) reflect this shift. BERNSTEIN TICKER TABLE INVESTMENT IMPLICATIONS The short term winners - there is a clear spectrum of exposure to the Luxury traveler.Viking is a pureplay and Melia/Hyatt skew heavily to the segment; with Marriott & IHG also having a decent presence. These are the ways to play an ongoingshort term shift to Luxury spend. OTAs notably under index to the 5* hotel but benefit from overall travel strength. We would have long term positive view on Hotel RevPAR, given there is seemingly little supply growth coming to balanceoutsized demand growth. Hyatt should continue to lead the pack on RevPAR. However, even though there is higher supplygrowth in luxury cruise, this is the most exposed to the best demographic trends (older and wealthier consumer) and is anindirect beneficiary of low luxury hotel construction. DETAILS KEY CHARTS EXHIBIT 1:Viking is unique as the only pure play luxury travel company an investor can buy SPOTTING THE K-SHAPE IN TRAVEL IS EASY Travel is one of the clearest examples of the K-shaped in consumer: •In hotelsthe relative position of a chain scale is a good predictor of how it has performed - the higher chain scales havepersistently outperformed, led by the Luxury