(We'll get the bad news over now. To read what opportunities the lodging sector can look forward to, come back to GlobeSt.com this PM.)

DENVER-The Lodging Industry Investment Council's annual member survey predicts a good-news-bad-news scenario for the market sector. Happily, the participants, who represent $20 billion in hotel investments, see the coming glass as more than half full.

Not surprisingly, the bad news in the LIIC Top 10—the list of coming opportunities and challenges that the survey results produce—seems to come at the hands of our elected officials. The survey was compiled by LIIC co-chairman Mike Cahill, who's also founder and CEO of Hospitality Real Estate Counselors.

Sequestration and ObamaCare are the twin engines of federally-imposed challenges, according to the survey's respondents. In its report, LIIC states that the austerity policy is “anticipated to negatively impact hotel owners. Fifty-five percent believe that the current government sequestration will cause ADR to decrease 1% to 5% in markets that rely heavily on government spending.”

While sequestration takes chunks from room rates, ObamaCare will be hiking labor costs. Some 86% of LIIC members say it will have that effect. Specifically, 48% of the membership see a significant—5% to 10%—jump in costs. Another 38% see costs going up only 1% to 5%.

But not all of the bad news can be laid at the doorstep of our elected officials. While there is a generally more positive attitude overall within members of the lodging-investment community, there are still some reasons why they, in the words of the report, “are getting refills on their Ambien and Xanax prescriptions.”

These Rx-inducing issues are operating cost hikes; the sluggish economy (OK. The feds can take responsibility for this one, too); “Delusional seller pricing expectations; brand pressures due to PIP mandates and new hotel supply impact.” A whopping 90% of the respondents agree to seeing these clouds on the horizon. They also believe “the bloated Dow Jones Industrial Average)is predicted to remain below or near current levels as of May 1, 2014.”

And that's where the bad news ends. Come back to GlobeSt.com this afternoon for the flip side of the good-news-bad-news picture.