A new CoStar report links the UK Real Estate Investment & Infrastructure Forum — UKREiiF — to measurable movement in the West Yorkshire hotel market, and it flags a changing of the guard: Liverpool is set to pick up the baton from 2028.

That's the headline finding. For hotel operators, investors and developers watching the regional UK market, the report's focus on West Yorkshire puts Leeds and its surrounding markets back at the center of the hospitality real estate conversation.

Why does UKREiiF matter to hotel operators?

UKREiiF, held annually in Leeds, has grown into one of the UK's largest gatherings of property investors, developers and local authorities. Its pull effect is straightforward. Thousands of delegates need rooms, for multiple nights, in a concentrated window each May.

For West Yorkshire's hotel stock, that means a reliable annual demand spike in a market that otherwise competes with Manchester and York for regional corporate and leisure business. The CoStar report positions this forum-driven demand as a genuine factor in the local hotel market's performance rather than a passing curiosity.

What does this change for operators? In practice, forum weeks reshape revenue management calendars, corporate rate negotiations and the timing of refurbishment shutdowns. Owners who plan around the event capture rate premiums; those who don't leave money on the table.

What happens in 2028?

The report's second finding carries the longer-term weight. Liverpool is set to take over hosting duties from 2028, according to the report, and with it the delegate demand that West Yorkshire has been absorbing.

The switch matters for two reasons.

First, West Yorkshire hotels will lose a recurring, high-occupancy demand event that has helped underwrite performance in shoulder periods. Revenue teams will need to backfill that business.

Second, Liverpool's hotel market stands to gain. A city already investing heavily in its visitor economy will inherit thousands of delegate room-nights annually, likely tightening occupancy during the forum's dates and giving operators pricing power they haven't historically held in that window.

The wider lens

For investors, the report is a reminder that event-driven demand is a real, datable input into regional hotel underwriting — not just a marketing line from convention bureaus. Cities that host major recurring forums get a measurable annual demand floor. Cities that lose them feel it.

The West Yorkshire market now has a runway of several more forum cycles before the Liverpool handover in 2028. Expect owners in both markets to start pricing that transition into deals well before the baton actually passes.