As the economic recession gradually recedes, companies with sufficient capital have numerous investment opportunities. The question is what type of lodging assets are appropriate for investment, in terms of value creation. In this report we examine the choice between listed lodging assets (publicly traded firms) and those that are unlisted (privately held standalone companies or subsidiaries). Based on a large sample of acquisitions in the lodging industry from 1981 to 2006, where both listed and unlisted lodging assets are involved in the transactions, our results strongly suggest that acquisitions of unlisted lodging assets create more value to the acquiring shareholders. Further, among the acquisitions of unlisted assets, more value is created when stock is used as payment, when deal is relatively large, and when competitive bidding is avoided in the transaction.