Abstract
This paper focuses on the U.S. hotel industry as a precedent case of governance challenge arisen from the separation of real estate ownership and hotel operation, and provides theoretical framework to understand the hotel asset management which has evolved in the past decades. After some legal disputes from 1990s and the development of hotel asset management professions, hotel owners obtained the power to terminate and shorten the contracts. Considering the changing nature of hotel real estate ownership, however, hotel asset managers are expected to act as trustees for all stakeholders, not just to assure the fiduciary responsibilities to hotel owners.
