Samer Choucair: Soundproofing Is No Longer a Luxury but a Standard for Protecting Hotel Asset Value
Investment leader Samer Choucair said sleep quality and acoustic performance are evolving in 2026 from operational considerations into factors that can influence hotel valuations and capital-allocation decisions.
According to Choucair, the rise in noise-related guest complaints at a time of resilient hotel demand exposes a growing divide between older properties designed before modern acoustic standards became a priority and newly developed hotels that can integrate soundproofing into the building from the design stage.
Samer Choucair said the global hospitality industry, with revenues estimated at approximately $492 billion in 2026, is entering a period in which growth in revenue per available room, or RevPAR, is becoming increasingly dependent on pricing rather than occupancy. In that environment, the quality of the guest’s sleep becomes a defensive mechanism for protecting average daily rates rather than simply another luxury amenity.
Hotels can no longer afford to treat noise as a complaint to be addressed only after something goes wrong, Choucair said. The industry is gradually moving from compensating guests after a poor experience toward pricing tranquility into the product before the room is sold.
“A room that cannot protect a guest’s sleep eventually loses its ability to justify a pricing premium,” Choucair said. “Travelers are increasingly comparing the hotel experience not only with competing properties, but with the comfort and control they have in their own homes.”
Soundproofing Enters the Investment Equation
Samer Choucair noted that U.S. hotel transaction volume reached approximately $24 billion in 2025, an increase of 17.5%, while major hotel groups have entered 2026 expecting RevPAR performance to depend heavily on average daily rates.
For investors, that shift makes the quality of the underlying asset increasingly important. The number of rooms, or “keys,” remains fundamental, but the ability of those rooms to sustain pricing power is becoming equally significant.
Retrofitting an existing hotel to improve acoustic performance can require substantial capital expenditure. Depending on the property, upgrades may involve multilayer windows, heavier doors, improvements to ventilation systems, acoustic treatment around elevators and mechanical equipment, and potentially the reconstruction of partitions between guest rooms.
New developments have a structural advantage.
Sound insulation can be incorporated into architectural design, material selection, room orientation, façade engineering, and quieter HVAC systems from the beginning, often at a lower marginal cost than attempting to correct acoustic deficiencies after construction.
“Markets reward what appears in booking photographs, but guests punish what they hear after midnight,” Samer Choucair said. “The gap between the two is becoming a silent discount on asset value.”
That discount may not immediately appear on a hotel’s balance sheet, but it can emerge gradually through weaker reviews, greater compensation costs, lower repeat bookings, reduced pricing power, and eventually weaker asset valuations.
Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Have a Design Opportunity
Choucair said Saudi Arabia and the wider Gulf have a significant opportunity because much of the region’s hospitality inventory is still being developed as part of major tourism and economic-diversification programs.
Saudi Arabia welcomed more than 120 million visitors in 2025, with tourism spending exceeding SAR 304 billion, while the Public Investment Fund is targeting the development of 100,000 hotel rooms and 70 tourism experiences between 2026 and 2030.
For Samer Choucair, the scale of this pipeline creates an opportunity that mature hotel markets do not necessarily possess: the ability to design future inventory around changing guest expectations before the buildings exist.
Acoustic performance can therefore be incorporated alongside energy efficiency, digital connectivity, sustainability, room technology, and other specifications at the initial investment stage.
At the same time, performance differences across Saudi cities reinforce the need for greater asset-level discipline.
Choucair pointed to RevPAR growth of approximately 8.7% in Makkah, compared with a decline of 23.2% in Riyadh, where occupancy fell to around 47.6%.
In markets experiencing greater supply pressure, hotel quality becomes particularly important because operators have less room to compensate for a weak guest experience simply through market-wide demand growth.
“A newly developed hotel can turn quietness into a competitive advantage,” Choucair said. “An urban property with poor acoustic performance, by contrast, can face two pressures simultaneously: increasing supply and deteriorating pricing power.”
From Hotel Operations to Capital Allocation
Samer Choucair said the potential beneficiaries of this trend extend beyond hotel developers and operators.
Demand could increase for manufacturers of acoustic building materials, specialized insulation providers, façade and glazing companies, quieter mechanical and HVAC systems, and engineering businesses capable of measuring and improving acoustic performance.
Hotel technology companies could also benefit.
Property-management and guest-experience platforms capable of recording noise complaints, identifying recurring problem areas, and allocating rooms according to guest preferences could turn acoustic performance into measurable operating data.
For institutional investors, Choucair said this means acoustic performance should increasingly be considered during due diligence alongside location, energy consumption, operating efficiency, renovation requirements, and competitive positioning.
The critical distinction is between properties where acoustic deficiencies can be corrected economically and those where structural limitations make remediation too expensive relative to the additional room rate the asset can realistically command.
That calculation becomes particularly important for older urban hotels, where external traffic, nightlife, elevators, mechanical systems, neighboring rooms, and internal corridors can all contribute to a poor sleeping environment.
Sleep Quality as an Asset-Protection Strategy
The investment implications extend beyond guest satisfaction.
A hotel capable of consistently delivering better sleep may be better positioned to protect its average daily rate, generate stronger guest reviews, reduce service-recovery expenses, and increase repeat business.
Those advantages can ultimately affect operating margins and asset value.
For investors, the question therefore shifts from whether soundproofing generates an immediately visible return to whether inadequate acoustic performance creates a long-term financial penalty.
In a competitive market, a hotel does not necessarily need to charge an explicit “quiet-room premium” for soundproofing to generate an economic return. Maintaining its existing pricing power while weaker competitors are forced to discount can itself represent a meaningful return on investment.
The Investment Outlook
Samer Choucair said institutional hospitality investment in 2026 should increasingly focus on an asset’s ability to defend revenue rather than simply generate occupancy.
“In 2026, institutional investment in hospitality is no longer simply about buying an occupancy stream,” Samer Choucair said. “It is about buying an asset’s ability to protect its pricing power when sleep becomes a scarce commodity in increasingly noisy cities.”
Capital financing new hospitality inventory in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf therefore has an opportunity to incorporate acoustic standards at the design stage, potentially avoiding expensive remediation later.
Owners of older inventory face a more difficult allocation decision. They must determine which properties justify substantial acoustic retrofits and which may be better candidates for disposal before recurring guest complaints translate into a permanent valuation discount.
For Samer Choucair, the ultimate investment test is no longer simply the number of rooms, occupancy rates, or even headline RevPAR.
The more important question is whether the investment memorandum explicitly recognizes the cost and economic value of sleep quality and acoustic performance.
When those factors influence a hotel’s ability to sustain room rates, protect guest loyalty, and preserve long-term cash flows, soundproofing stops being a luxury specification and becomes part of the financial architecture protecting the asset itself.