CBRE - A Conversation with Carol Lopes

Carol, thank you for taking the time to speak to me today about CBRE and the value of your tourism data services. To start, could you provide a brief overview of your professional background and your current role at CBRE?

I'm pleased to chat with you today regarding the CBRE Trends Program. With regard to my professional background, it's pretty varied. Firstly, I was born in South Africa, and I started my career in public relations, marketing, and communications. I was part of the PR and marketing team for Sandton City, which is a premier shopping mall in South Africa. And then following my time at Sandton City, I shifted my direction and joined the American Consular General, which provided consular services to American citizens living in South Africa.

From there, I joined the immigration team and then immigrated to Canada in the mid-1990s and joined PKF Consulting in Vancouver in an administrative role. Whilst also maintaining the Trends program, which at the time was just for British Columbia,  I eventually took over the management of the Trends database throughout Canada. 2015, PKF was acquired by CBRE, and then I continued my work with Trends and supporting the admin and research teams as well.

My current role is Senior Valuation Associate. I manage two proprietary databases: the monthly trends database for top-line data and the annual trends database for hotel financial statements.

One of the most valuable components of this program is accommodation performance tracking. How is this data collected from accommodation partners?

The data is collected each month. I reach out via email and request that the information be sent to me between the first and the 15th of each month. In terms of the information, it's just an Excel data sheet with the three top-line numbers that we require. And it's a fairly quick and easy process.

Who has access to this data?

The data is always kept confidential, and individual data is never disclosed. And as it's an aggregate format, that's the only way that we would release the information. In terms of who has access to it, it would be the hotel valuation advisory services team on staff, because we use that within the database for doing our research. And other than that, it would just be our own team having access.

For busy tourism operators, time is always a big factor. What is the time commitment required for an accommodation partner to participate every month?

I would like to say initially, if a hotel signs up, it takes a little bit more time because we just need some information about the hotel. And then if possible, maybe just two years of historical data to give us a trend line. Once that is done, each month, I would say not more than five or 10 minutes because we just need the room revenue, rooms occupied, and rooms available information. As I said, it's in an Excel sheet. Just complete the form and then return it by email to me.

What are the key benefits for accommodation providers across our region and the communities? How can the status support better decision-making?

I'd say hotels can benchmark against their competition. It provides useful and timely information. For the accommodation industry, it can provide insight into a particular region or community and serve as a guide in market forecasting and analyzing operating performance.

For accommodations that are not yet participating in the program in Southeastern Ontario, what are the next steps for them to sign up? How do they go about doing that?

They can reach out to me directly: Carol.Lopes@cbre.com. They can send me an email to let me know that they're interested. I then send an information package to them, as well as the historical data forms that we require and any other details that they might need. They can just reach out to me. They can call me as well at my phone number 778-372-1940.

Wonderful. Well, I want to thank you, Carol, for sharing your insights today for accommodation operators. Operators across South Eastern Ontario participating in the CBRE Hotel Data program help them better understand market performance benchmarks against regional trends and make informed decisions.

Operators interested in participating, can reach out to Steve Weir at RTO 9 or Carol Lopes at CBRE for more information: