STR Report
The STR report hotels receive, also called the STAR report, compares one hotel's occupancy, average daily rate and RevPAR with a group of competing hotels and the wider market. STR here stands for Smith Travel Research, the hotel data company CoStar now owns. The same letters also abbreviate short-term rental, a separate kind of data.
Last updated: October 2026
How an STR report works
STAR stands for Smith Travel Accommodations Report (STR Report for Hotels: What It Is and How to Use It (Chekin)). The first one launched in 1988 as a monthly report measuring each hotel's market share against a competitive set the hotel chose itself (STR, Inc. (Wikipedia)). CoStar Group agreed to buy STR for $450 million in cash in 2019 (Hotel Data Giant STR Acquired for $450 Million (Skift)). STAR reports are still available today, downloaded from the STR Benchmark feature inside CoStar (FAQs, STR Benchmark (CoStar)).
STR collects data for more than 90,000 hotels around the world. Chain headquarters, management companies, owners and independent hotels submit their performance data, and STR processes it daily, weekly and monthly. STR releases aggregated data only, never an individual hotel's, brand's or company's figures (FAQs, STR Benchmark (CoStar)).
Each report sets the hotel's own numbers beside its comp set averages and the broader market: raw figures, percentage changes from prior periods, index scores and rank within the comp set (Hotel STAR report: how to read STR reports (Mews)). A comp set is the group of hotels a property competes against for business, usually in the same area and offering similar services and amenities (Glossary, STR Benchmark (CoStar)). Rank shows position in that group, so a RevPAR rank of "2 of 6" means the second-highest RevPAR of the six hotels in the set. Percent changes compare each figure with the same period last year, calculated as (This Year minus Last Year) divided by Last Year (FAQs, STR Benchmark (CoStar)).
The three index scores each divide the hotel's figure by the comp set's figure and multiply by 100: MPI for occupancy, ARI for ADR and RGI for RevPAR. An index of 100 means the hotel is capturing its fair share, and anything above 100 is more than fair share. A hotel with a $60 RevPAR against a $50 comp set has an RGI of 120 (Glossary, STR Benchmark (CoStar)).
Comp sets follow fixed rules. A set needs at least four participating hotels besides the subject hotel, at least three of them unaffiliated with it, from at least two unaffiliated companies. No single property can hold more than 50% of the set's participating rooms, and no single company more than 70%. A hotel counts as participating if it submitted data for the current month or for 3 of the 4 most recent months. Sets that fall out of compliance and are not fixed within 90 days are deleted (Competitive Set Guidelines, STR Benchmark (CoStar)).
Why the STR report matters for hotel distribution
Benchmark results show whether a hotel's channel mix and pricing are winning business against nearby competitors, which a hotel's own occupancy and ADR cannot show alone.
Access follows data sharing. STR Benchmark is a premium CoStar feature available only to hotel data providers that subscribe with STR (FAQs, STR Benchmark (CoStar)). Participating hotels receive reports weekly, monthly and annually (Understanding Hotel STAR Reports: A Complete Guide (EHL Insights)).
Properties that sell through rental platforms as well as hotel channels face a second kind of competitor. STR and AirDNA ran a joint 2020 analysis comparing traditional hotels with hotel-comparable short-term rentals (studios and 1-bedroom units) and with larger rentals of 2 bedrooms or more (STR, AirDNA analysis of short-term rentals and hotels (CoStar)). In 2025 US data from AirDNA and CoStar, short-term rentals in urban markets priced about 25% below hotels, while suburban rentals were 5% more expensive than hotels (Short-term rentals continue to grow supply, demand but hotels have urban market edge (CoStar News)).
STR report, hotel star ratings and other data compared
| STR report | Hotel star ratings | Short-term rental data | Rate shopping tools | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What it shows | A hotel's occupancy, ADR and RevPAR against its comp set and market | A quality classification of the hotel | Rental supply, pricing and performance | Competitors' public prices |
| Where the data comes from | Figures each participating hotel submits, shared only in aggregate | The rating body | Rental market data, such as AirDNA's | Published rates on booking sites |
The names cause most of the confusion. The STR report is also called the STAR report, and that name comes from an acronym, not from a hotel's star rating (Understanding Hotel STAR Reports: A Complete Guide (EHL Insights)).
Frequently asked questions
What is an STR report for hotels?
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Is an STR report about short-term rentals?
Related terms
See all termsWhere Jetstream fits
An STR report scores a property's results after the fact, against its competitors. The occupancy and rate behind those scores come from every channel the property sells through, from its own website to OTAs and rental platforms. Jetstream builds an AI channel manager that connects a property's systems to those channels and keeps rooms, rates and availability accurate on each one, managed from one place.