Independent Hotel

An independent hotel is a hotel that is independently owned and run and does not let any other owner use its name or brand. In STR's benchmarking, independents sit in their own chain scale category, separate from branded groups, whatever their rate level (Independent Hotel (XOTELS glossary)) (STR Chain Scales (CoStar)).

Last updated: November 2026

How an independent hotel works

The brand, or the lack of one, decides where a hotel sits in industry benchmarks. STR places branded hotels into chain scales mainly by the prior year's global system-wide average daily rate (ADR), and STR sets the rate range for each scale (STR Chain Scales (CoStar)). Independents are kept out of that sorting, so a luxury independent and an economy independent share one category. A branded hotel, by contrast, takes the scale of its brand, which follows the system-wide rate of every hotel under that brand. No single property's rate sets it.

Soft brands make the label harder to read. Marriott markets its Autograph Collection as a global collection of distinctive independent hotels (Autograph Collection Hotels (Marriott)). STR's February 2026 list treats collections like it as chains: Curio Collection by Hilton is in the Upper Upscale Chain scale, and Ascend Collection from Choice Hotels is in the Upscale Chain scale (STR Chain Scales (CoStar)). The same property can therefore be called independent in a collection's marketing and branded in STR's data.

Affiliations offer a third route. Preferred Hotels & Resorts presents its whole portfolio as independent hotels and independent hotel experiences (About (Preferred Hotels & Resorts)). A hotel can join that kind of network without flying a chain's brand.

Why it matters for hotel distribution

Going without a chain changes how a hotel reaches guests. An independent avoids the franchise costs that branded hotels pay. Total franchise costs for US brands averaged 9.6% of rooms revenue for economy brands and 12.9% for high-end brands in the 2025 edition of the HVS U.S. Franchise Fee Guide (Hotels magazine, Aug 2026). By product type, median costs ranged from 10.9% for extended-stay hotels to 12.5% for full-service hotels (Hotels magazine, Aug 2026). Because those costs are a share of rooms revenue, they grow as a branded hotel sells more rooms. An independent keeps that share of revenue, and in exchange it goes without what the brand provides for those fees.

Online travel agencies carry a large share of independent hotel sales. Without a chain, an independent lacks the marketing support of a major affiliation and its negotiating power with travel agents and OTAs (Independent Hotel (XOTELS glossary)). Each booking an OTA makes carries an OTA commission paid to that channel.

For an independent, that puts OTA rates, availability and booking terms close to the center of daily distribution work, alongside the hotel's own direct channel. Each rate change, each closed date and each new room type has to reach every OTA listing and the hotel's own website, and the hotel has to keep them in step.

Independent hotel compared with soft-brand and chain hotels

 Independent hotelSoft-brand collection hotelChain (branded) hotel
Name and brandIts own, not shared with other ownersIts own, inside a chain's collection such as Autograph Collection, Curio or AscendThe chain's brand
Rules it followsThe owner's; a voluntary chain member also follows a bigger brand's standardsRuns autonomously but follows brand standards of some kindThe brand's, and it pays franchise costs
STR benchmarkingIndependent category, at any rate levelListed as a chainChain scale set by the brand's prior-year ADR

Frequently asked questions

What makes a hotel independent?
Ownership and brand. A hotel that is owned and run on its own and keeps its name to itself is independent. Andrew Benioff of the Independent Lodging Congress, speaking to Travel Market Report in 2017, called stand-alone properties unaffiliated with any brand or network "true" independents, to set them apart from independents that join soft brands such as Autograph and Curio. An independent can also sign up to a voluntary chain and stay independent while following a bigger brand's standards.
Is a soft brand hotel an independent hotel?
Not in benchmark data. A soft brand hotel operates autonomously but must still follow brand standards of some kind, and STR lists soft-brand collections such as Curio Collection by Hilton and Ascend Collection as chains. The owner may be independent, but in industry statistics the hotel counts as part of a chain.
How many hotels in the US are independent?
Skift reported in March 2023 that only about one third of the roughly 60,000 hotels in the US had stayed independent in recent years. New independents were still being built: STR counted unaffiliated hotels representing about 30,000 rooms under construction in the US as of late December 2022.
Do independent hotels have loyalty programs?
A stand-alone independent has no chain loyalty program behind it, which is part of the marketing support a major affiliation would otherwise bring. Joining an affiliation is one way to get one. Preferred Hotels & Resorts, whose members are independent hotels, runs its own program, I Prefer Hotel Rewards, across its portfolio.

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Where Jetstream fits

An independent hotel looks after its own rooms, rates and availability on every channel it sells through. Jetstream builds an AI channel manager that connects a property's systems to the channels where guests book and keeps rooms, rates and availability accurate on each one, managed from one place.

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