Randy Smith, Owner and CEO of Smith Travel Research noted, “In today’s uncertain operating environment, owners and managers need information to supplement ADR and occupancy comparisons. Benchmarking profitability measures is vital to the lodging industry’s growth and prosperity. We have listened to our friends and colleagues in the industry and, for the last year, have built a broad consensus of support across brands and companies for this valuable new product.”

Mark Lomanno, president of STR, adds: “The support of the industry has been overwhelming. There is clearly a great need to collect lodging industry profit and GOP numbers to allow profitability ratio benchmarking. Monthly HOST will allow savvy managers to better understand how their hotel operating performance compares with competition.”

Monthly HOST is designed to collect monthly property level statistics on:

• Food & Beverage revenue
• Total revenue
• Rooms department profit
• Gross operating profit
• Franchise fees
• Management fees

Aggregated monthly data will be made available to participants by market, chain scale and other criteria. As the program grows and the data sample becomes more robust, competitive set comparisons will become available. Of course, all monthly HOST data will be held in the strictest confidence. To encourage participation and a thorough understanding of this performance benchmark, distribution of the compiled results will be limited to participants only during the launch phase of the project.  To date, STR has received support and data commitments for this important product from the following companies:

• Marriott International
• Starwood Hotels and Resorts
• Strategic Hotel Capital
• FelCor
• LaQuinta
• Four Seasons
• Baymont
• Hilton Hotels Corporation
• Host Marriott Corporation
• Hyatt Hotels and Resorts
• Remington Hotels
• Fairmont
• Interstate/Meristar

Smith Travel Research -- the leader in lodging industry tracking and analysis - provides regular industry reporting to all major U.S. chains, many independent hotels, and a variety of management companies and hotel owners.