The impact of the global financial crisis was immediate, and devastating, on the hotel industry. Companies cut budgets. Governments did not want to be seen as spending so much. And people who were uncertain about where their next paycheck would come from avoided jetting away for a frivolous long weekend.

The U.S. market had one of the swiftest declines, with federal government spending suddenly and virtually cut off. Convention and meeting events was the next leg to be lopped off. Then the tourists stopped arriving.

“Hotels had a massive fall from grace,” says Marc Socker, senior director of the hotel fund management team at Invesco Real Estate. “In terms of transactions, trading really fell off a cliff and really, really quickly.”

The reaction and the impact of the global financial crisis hav