What is STR?
STR Stands for Smith Travel Research, a hospitality research company started in 1985 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. At the time, there was not a good resource for competitive hotel data. STR built a census database with contact information for hotels across the United States that eventually evolved into a market share report (STAR). STR was acquired by the CoStar Group in 2019 for $450 million and is an important asset in their portfolio of real estate information service providers with brands such as Apartments.com and BizBuySell. In 2022, STR remains a market leader in hotel intelligence and is used by all types of hotels from independent properties to Fortune 500 chains.
What is Smith Travel Accommodations Report STAR?
In 1988, STR brought this to life with their Smith Travel Accommodations Report (STAR). This was a monthly report that measured hotel market share and other key competitive metrics. This concept grew and expanded to international markets, becoming a core dataset that has been used in the hotel industry all over the world.
Due to being a pioneer in the hotel competitive data space, the STAR report created important metrics used by hoteliers such as the Market Penetration Index (MPI) and the average rate index (ARI).
