While business travel is still a fraction of what it was before the pandemic, the shift back toward physical offices and meeting face to face has helped fill hotel rooms in corporate centers across the country. It's also luring investors to a property type that's steadily clawing its way back to pre-COVID levels of activity.

Prices for hotel properties in some of the nation’s busiest travel hubs often reflect how regional property markets are performing, highlighting investor confidence or foreshadowing potential risk depending on an area's job growth, anticipated layoffs, or other factors.

Prices also provide a window into what attributes buyers are seeking and what they’re willing to bet on in the face of economic uncertainty. And, of course, a building’s location, age, condition, occupancy and other characteristics also affect the price.

For investors shopping for hospitality properties, hotels in markets with improving return-to-office and business travel have become increasingly desirable. A Morgan Stanley survey of 100 global corporate travel managers reported that many employers say their company's travel expenditures are already back to pre-pandemic levels and will continue to grow. Overall travel budgets this year are estimated to be about 98% of 2019 levels on average, according to the survey results, even with almost one-fifth of corporate travel still replaced with virtual meetings.

Here’s a subjective look at how far $120 million will go in buying a hotel in popular business destination markets such as Seattle, Washington; Nashville, Tennessee; and Boston. The following properties were sold in the last half of 2022.

Address: 118 Eighth Ave. South
Price: $109.5 million, or about $429,412 per key
Hotel Rooms: 255 keys
Buyer: Pyramid Global Hospitality, a Boston-based hotel and resort management company
Seller: Hotel management and development firm Concord Hospitality Enterprises Company
Proximity to Convention Center: Less than a mile
Year Built: 2018
Market's Average Occupancy Rate: About 72.5% as of Jan. 23, according to CoStar data, compared to less than 62% in January 2022.
Fun Fact: Nashville reported a record-breaking tourism year after attracting more than 14.4 million visitors in 2022, up 13% over 2021, and generating nearly $9 billion in visitor spending.

Address: 1610 Second Ave.
Price: $107.8 million, or about $470,730 per key
Hotel Rooms: 229 keys
Buyer: Dynamic City Capital, a Utah-based real estate investment firm focused on high-end hotels
Seller: A joint venture between Widewaters Hotels, a hospitality management firm, and private investment firm Rockbridge Capital
Proximity to Convention Center: About half a mile's walk 
Year Built: 2018
Market's Average Occupancy Rate: About 65.5% as of Jan. 23, according to CoStar data, compared to 45.4% in January 2022.
Fun Fact: The Charter Seattle hotel is among many downtown hospitality properties hoping to benefit from the recent $2 billion expansion of the Seattle Convention Center, which opened Jan 25. It adds roughly 600,000 square feet to the convention center's footprint and is estimated to attract as much as $260 million in annual visitor spending for the city.

Address: 154 Berkeley St.
Price: $116.6 million, or about $518,220 per key
Hotel Rooms: 225 keys
Buyer: Electra America Hospitality Group, a hospitality fund and affiliate of private equity firm Electra America
Seller: Global investment banking firm Perella Weinberg Partners
Proximity to Convention Center: About 1 1/2 mile's walk
Year Built: 1925
Market's Average Occupancy Rate: About 70.5% as of Jan. 23, according to CoStar data, compared to about 51% in January 2022.
Fun Fact: The former Loews Boston Hotel served as the headquarters for the Boston Police Department until 1990. As a hotel, it is expected to benefit from the location's proximity to nearby universities and access to the nation's largest biotech hub.