Not long after Randy Smith and his wife, Carolyn, launched STR( née Smith Travel Research) in 1985, did the data they produced become essential for hoteliers to compare a hotel’ s performance against a competitive set across three main KPIs: occupancy, ADR and RevPAR. In 2019, CoStar group acquired STR for $ 450 million, illustrating the value attached to data. It’ s something Amanda Hite, president of STR, knows all too well. She’ s made a career out of it.“ Data matters because it transforms uncertainty into insight,” she said.“ Across the hotel industry— whether managing one property or a global portfolio— data provides the clarity required to make confident, informed |
decisions.” STR, now under the aegis of CoStar, a global provider of commercial real estate information, made its mark in benchmarking— the method of comparing one organization’ s performance against another, allowing for insight into strengths and weaknesses, ultimately identifying areas of improvement.“ Benchmarking performance against budgets |
and the competitive landscape allows owners and operators to optimize development, acquisition, operations, revenue strategy and asset disposition,” Hite said. While STR made its name providing top-line metrics, it added, of late, profitability benchmarking that delivers full profit-and-loss performance, giving hoteliers visibility into each operating department. On |
Amanda Hite, president, STR
the AI front, STR will look to borrow from CoStar, which owns the residential listing portal Homes. com.“ The introduction of Homes AI, which brings realtime, voice-enabled guidance into the home search experience, reflects our focus on applying AI where it genuinely improves decision-making,” Hite said.“ We see that same opportunity within STR.”
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66 hotelsmag. com May / June 2026 |