After three difficult years beginning with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, hotel real estate investment trusts (REITs) are headed to better times. Earnings are improving and hotels have been slowly but surely increasing dividends that were either cut or suspended in 2020. Hotel REITs, like many other REIT subsectors, touched 2023 lows at the end of October. But since then, many in the hotel subsector have been on fire, with total gains among several of them between 25% and 50%. This week, several hotel REITs reported fourth-quarter 2023 operating results that beat the estimates on both fun…