BOULDER, Colorado—There’s more to hotel performance than a STAR report market penetration index. To get the full picture, you must consider a more varied set of metrics that pinpoint where a given property fits within its competitive set.
“Just because your penetration might be 120% of your competitive set average, it might not mean that you’re performing to the best level that you can, and vice versa,” said Steve Hennis, director of STR Analytics.
To truly push performance, savvy operators should also consider gross operating profit per available room, net operating income and other metrics that will be the subject of a panel during the upcoming Hotel Data Conference hosted by STR and HotelNewsNow.com and presented by Gaylord Hotels on 4-5 August in Nashville at the Loews Vanderbilt Hotel.
Titled “Success Metrics in the Lodging Industry,” the panel, which will be led by Hennis and his STR Analytics colleague, Greg Hartmann, hopes to achieve two primary goals.
1. To get attendees to stop gauging their performance solely against the market average.
2. To look beyond occupancy, rate and revenue per available room.
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Steve Hennis, director, STR Analytics
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“We want to show people what the impact is to the bottom line and not just top-line performance,” Hennis said. “… A lot of people are just used to seeing their STAR reports with occupancy, rate and RevPAR, and they think that’s all STR does.”
The market average can be particularly hazy at times, he added. If your particular market is down 20% year-over-year, for example, that’s not to say that every hotel is down 20%. Some properties, including your closest competitors, might actually be driving rate.
By drilling into your own performance using the right metrics and breaking down your market by segmentation, days of the week and seasonality, you’re far more likely to drive performance as a market leader.
“There’s certainly opportunity there that people just didn’t see, and some properties were able to gain ground in rate where others didn’t,” Hennis said.
