Hospitality Insight

Looking for extensive data on U.S. hotel industry revenues and expenses? Published by STR, the Hotel Operating Statistics (HOST) Study compiles statistics from more than 6,200 hotel operating statements. In addition to revenue and expense data, the HOST Study provides analysis of the current hotel environment, focusing on rooms, food & beverage, marketing, utility costs, property & maintenance, administrative & general, and selected fixed charges.

The 2011 HOST Study can be found on the library’s reference shelf (call number TX901 H695).

U.S. News & World Report has issued their annual ranking of the top hotels, covering 852 luxury hotel properties across 49 popular travel destinations in the United States.

A Hotel Score is calculated for each property, consisting of the weighted average of scores for three components: Awards & Recognition, Hotel Class, and Guest Rating. The number of points earned by the hotel is combined and then divided that by the number of points for which the hotel was eligible. On a given list, hotels are ranked highest to lowest according to the Hotel Score. Hotels with high expert/user ratings and many industry accolades are likely to perform best.

The Top 10 U.S. hotels:

1. Elysian Hotel Chicago – Chicago, IL
2. Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea – Maui, HI
3. Trump International Hotel & Tower, Chicago – Chicago, IL
4. Mandarin Oriental, San Francisco – San Francisco, CA
5. The Fairmont Olympic Hotel – Seattle, WA
6. The Hermitage Hotel – Nashville, TN
7. The Ritz-Carlton New York, Central Park – New York, NY
8. Four Seasons Hotel Las Vegas – Las Vegas, NV
9. Trump International Hotel & Tower, New York – New York, NY
10. The Ritz-Carlton Golf Resort, Naples – Naples, FL

See the full list on the U.S. News & World Report website.

In 2009, a select sample of hotels that routinely offer free services to their guests spent an average of $723 per available room (PAR) to provide complimentary food, newspapers, and cocktails. This is the actual cost to the hotel, not the theoretical retail value of savings afforded to the guest.

The data comes from an analysis of rooms department expenditures for Complimentary Services and Gifts (GSG) at 1,600 properties in PKF’s Trends in the Hotel Industry database. The Trends in the Hotel Industry publication is available in the library (call number TX909 A1 T74). You can also view the Hotel Freebies report on the PKF website.

MKG Hospitality has released its annual rankings of the top global hotel groups and brands. International Hotel Group is the top hotel group by a wide margin, with 647,161 rooms compared to 605,938 rooms for second-place Hilton Worldwide. Wyndham, Marriott, and Accor round out the top five.

As far as hotel brands, Best Western continues to hold the top spot, with 307,155 rooms, although their total number of rooms fell off 0.4% from 2010. Holiday Inn (230,117 rooms) is second on the brand list.

View the full lists on the Hotel Online website.

Using a matrix of 10 data dimensions to determine the cities with the highest long-term potential for hotel investment, the Lodging Market Potential Index can be a critical tool for hotel developers and investors. Developed at The School of Hospitality Business at Michigan State University, the Lodging Market Potential Index provides a systematic and formal analysis of aggregate market potential.

The Lodging Market Potential Index identifies market areas that show long term potential for hotel investment. It enables hotel developers and investors to conduct a relative comparison of the 25 largest lodging markets (as tracked by Smith Travel Research) along 10 diminsions. Dimensions are measured using 30 different indicators and are weighted to determine their contribution to the overall market potential index. The Lodging Market Potential is based on a scale of 1 to 100.

View the Lodging Market Potential Index. The most recent data is from 2010.

The March issue of the Smith Travel Research Pipeline Report has arrived in the library. The STR Pipeline Report provides a monthly summary of the number of pipeline projects, recently opened hotels and the number of existing hotels split by scale, key countries and markets.

Hotel segment information is provided by parent company, chain affiliation, year of opening and phase progression. The STR Pipeline Report is the ideal report for a full picture of the current and future supply within North America, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa, and Europe.

Copies of the STR Pipeline Report can be found on the Current Periodicals shelf in the library.

Many hotel companies are taking advantage of the private branding movement. Sometimes referred to as private labeling, private branding is when a large retail operation buys from a manufacturer in bulk and puts its own name on the product.

In a recent Hotel Interactive article, Hotel School professor Alex Susskind commented on the effect of private branding in the hotel industry: “If the brand itself has brand equity in the market that people look toward, the decision the hotel makes can transfer to other things.”

For more information on private branding for hotels, read the full article on the Hotel Interactive website.

The Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index ended October at 2,162, a 6.3-percent increase for the month and a 34.8-percent increase for year-to-date 2010.

The Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index from 11/08 to 11/10

The Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index is a co-branded index created by Robert W. Baird & Co. (Baird) and Smith Travel Research, Inc. (STR). The market-cap weighted index is comprised of 15 of the largest market capitalization hotel companies publicly traded on a U.S. exchange and attempts to characterize the performance of hotel stocks.