COVID-19 impact on STR monthly benchmarking
COVID-19 has altered the way industries are operating around the world. The data community, and STR, are no exception as we collectively navigate through a benchmarking period challenged by widescale property closures and the repurposing of hotels in the fight against the pandemic.
With that in mind, we want to bring to your attention the impact on the April results that will be shared this week.
STR has placed added importance on the processes that validate and maximize industry data while remaining unequivocally committed to the confidentiality of individual properties, brands, and parent companies. However, with tens of thousands of properties offline in one form or another, a number of markets and competitive sets lack data to report or do not currently meet our sufficiency guidelines. This means that certain data sets will appear blank until more properties come back online and resume reporting. Additionally, market data that you are used to seeing in your reports may default to a larger geographic region with sufficient data sample. For instance, if you typically receive submarket numbers, those may be replaced with market-level or in some cases country-level data. That will be dictated by the severity of the closures in that area.
We want to assure you that we expect this to be a short-term issue and that we continue to work to deliver the best possible data to our clients. As you have likely seen, we have adjusted our reporting rules to allow participants to access market-level metrics even with no data to report from their own property.
The tracking of closed and reopened hotels as well the verification and validation of reported data to STR remains an ongoing effort. We also continue to stay on top of methodology to create additional benchmarking opportunities for our clients. Clarifications around that methodology, including the treatment of temporary closures, mid-month closures and lease operations, can be viewed here.
We also continue to produce resources to help the industry track performance recovery. Such information can be accessed on our hotel industry impact analysis page, which discusses COVID, inflation, and more. It also features complimentary webinars, social media posts, press releases and other educational links.
Positive signs are emerging in various parts of the world—most hotels in China have reopened with occupancy on the ascent, the U.S. has shown four consecutive week-over-week demand increases, and some parts of Europe are reopening. We are honoured to remain by your side on the recovery road ahead. We are truly in this together.
Thank you for your continued partnership. Your input remains critically important to us, so please do not hesitate to connect with your STR representative or visit our contact page to connect with someone in your region with feedback or questions around specific markets or comp sets.