PricewaterhouseCoopers and Smith Travel Research Produce WW*STAR - A Resource To Improve Hotel Operating Results

PwC and STR formed this global alliance to establish the largest worldwide performance benchmarking system for the lodging industry, the Worldwide Smith Travel Accommodations Report (WW*STAR) programme. The WW*STAR programme provides participants customised monthly operating performance reports that include comparative aggregate averages for a property's selected competitors.

The PwC and STR alliance offers the hospitality and leisure industry the most comprehensive global lodging research available. The WW*STAR programme allows companies to identify ways to maximise return on investment; easily identify trends in occupancy, ADR and RevPAR; assess whether or not their hotel is obtaining its fair share of occupancy or room revenue; accurately compare one hotel to its competition; provide useful hotel benchmarks to create budgets and annual business/marketing plans; and maintain sensitive operating performance data in strict confidence .

Users have access to 3 year historical data in Asia/Pacific, the Americas, Europe, Middle East and Africa.

In contrast to other firms currently conducting data collection efforts, all data collected by PwC and STR are kept in the strictest confidence. Data cannot be seen or accessed by a participant's competitors, ensuring that data confidentiality will never be compromised or used by PwC's clients or in any other firm's work. This exceptional treatment of data gives participants peace of mind and makes the PwC/STR programme unique among all data collection programs.

In Australia and all across the Asia Pacific region, this alliance has been in place and active since May this year, and the industry is now seeing the benefits of the information that is provided to the clients actively participating in the research.

Phil Young, Managing Director, Tourism Council Australia welcomed the availability of Smith Travel Research in Australia. "STR is renowned for its excellence in data research and its presence in the Australian marketplace will greatly benefit the hospitality and leisure industry," Mr Young said.

Neil Haines, Asia Pacific leader of Hospitality and Leisure for PricewaterhouseCoopers said, ""PwC and STR have the most comprehensive research tools available to help industry leaders make intelligent, informed decisions that will ultimately improve the bottom-line."

"PwC is dedicated to lodging research. We have a research team with members in New York, London, Sydney, Hong Kong and Singapore. No other firm has made such a commitment to become the thought leaders in the hospitality and leisure industry."

The types of organisations that would benefit from the WW*STAR programme include;

• Hotel owners and operators
• Hotel management companies
• Development firms
• Hotel associations
• Tourism authorities
• Lenders and investment banks