About Boutique Hotel Advisors: Hotel Feasibility Consultants
John Sears is a 25-year career hotelier and professional consultant whose pedigree includes Mobil awarded five-star hotel management. John is certified in hotel feasibility studies and hotel valuations by Switzerland’s Glion University School of Hospitality. Prior to BHA, John served as vice president of marketing & development for Switzerland based Boutique Hotels & Resorts International S.A., where he led the company growth to one-hundred-four hotels in thirty-six countries and worked first-hand with each hotel’s investors and management teams. John has been a featured speaker at many worldwide hotel industry events and has worked with 500+ hotel projects in 100+ countries, visits over 100 hotels per year, and is a respected authority in hotel performance, development, valuations, and acquisitions.
Jeff Lefkovich is a Project Manager with BHA. Jeff brings 30 years of experience in planning, strategy, design, and development of real estate projects that include mixed-use, residential, hospitality, senior living, wellness centers, commercial, and health care, totaling more than two million square feet of space. Jeff serves as a managing principal for two large-scale multi-generation, mixed-use, mixed-income, live/work community developments in Connecticut, which he designed (Heritage River Village and Collins Village) that have combined values of over $200 million with more than 680,000 of residential, hospitality, and commercial space. For 12 years, Jeff served as President for JB Commercial, Inc., a design/build, real estate development, owner’s representation firm.
Why BHA Is Qualified to Prepare Hotel Feasibility Studies
Hotel feasibility studies play a critical role in hospitality investment decision-making. Developers, investors, lenders, family offices, and ownership groups rely on these studies to evaluate market opportunities, assess financial viability, identify investment risks, and determine whether a project can support long-term operational success.
Boutique Hotel Advisors brings more than 25 years of hospitality industry experience and has participated in over 500 hospitality projects across more than 100 countries. This global exposure provides BHA with a broad understanding of hotel development, operations, asset management, market positioning, and investment performance across a wide range of hospitality sectors.
Unlike consultants whose expertise may be limited to market research alone, BHA’s experience spans the full hospitality lifecycle, including hotel feasibility studies, development planning, buyer-side due diligence, hotel acquisitions, operator selection, asset management, repositioning strategies, and operational performance evaluation. This integrated perspective allows feasibility recommendations to be grounded not only in market data but also in real-world operational and investment considerations.
BHA specializes in boutique hotels, lifestyle hotels, luxury hotels, independent hotels, resorts, and mixed-use hospitality developments. Every feasibility assignment is approached with an understanding that successful projects require alignment between market demand, financial performance, competitive positioning, operational realities, and ownership objectives.
The firm’s independent advisory model is another important distinction. BHA is not affiliated with hotel brands, franchise companies, or hotel management operators. This independence allows clients to receive objective recommendations that are focused exclusively on investment performance, project viability, and ownership interests.
Whether evaluating a new hotel development, resort project, adaptive reuse opportunity, mixed-use hospitality concept, brand conversion, or acquisition opportunity, BHA’s goal remains consistent: providing independent analysis that supports better informed decision making.
Hotel Feasibility Leadership
Hotel feasibility studies require more than financial modeling and market statistics. They demand a comprehensive understanding of hospitality operations, development economics, investment risk, competitive positioning, and long-term asset performance.
BHA’s feasibility practice is led by John Sears, whose experience includes hotel feasibility studies, hospitality valuations, hotel development advisory, buyer-side due diligence, hotel acquisitions, asset management, and operational consulting assignments throughout the global hospitality industry.
John has worked with hotel owners, developers, investors, lenders, management companies, and hospitality stakeholders across a broad spectrum of projects ranging from boutique hotels and lifestyle properties to luxury resorts, mixed-use developments, golf communities, and private membership clubs.
His professional training includes certification in Hotel Feasibility Studies and Hotel Valuations through Glion University in Switzerland, one of the world’s most recognized hospitality education institutions. This formal training is complemented by decades of practical experience evaluating hospitality investments, development opportunities, operational performance, and market positioning strategies.
Under his leadership, BHA approaches every feasibility study with a focus on independent analysis, investment discipline, and long-term ownership value. Rather than relying solely on theoretical projections, BHA’s methodology incorporates operational realities, market dynamics, competitive intelligence, and investment objectives to help clients make informed hospitality decisions.
This combination of hospitality expertise, global project experience, investment-focused analysis, and independent advisory perspective allows BHA to provide feasibility studies designed to support developers, investors, lenders, and ownership groups throughout the decision-making process.
NEWS
Over the years we’ve published articles of value to hotel owners, hotel management, and hotel investors: