Randy Smith To Receive ALIS Lifetime Achievement Award

Randell A. Smith, CEO of STR, based in Hendersonville, Tenn., will be honored with the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award at the Americas Lodging Investment Summit (ALIS), January 25-27, 2010, in recognition of his legacy in pioneering global hotel benchmarking, the foundation of the company he co-founded.

A longtime hotel analyst, including director of research at Laventhol & Horwath, Smith launched STR in 1985 in Lancaster, Penn., to create a service to provide the best information on overall performance trends to the lodging industry and its observers. The initial concept was to create a complete list of all properties in the United States and provide that list to suppliers in order to create districts and territories for their sales staff. Smith then created a database that tracked the performance of individual properties and compared them with the competition. With the support of a few key chains, STR launched the STAR program in January 1988. The STAR program has become the source of information for chains, management companies, as well as lenders, appraisers, consultants and developers. In 2008, STR brought together Deloitte’s HotelBenchmark™ and The Bench to form STR Global, which offers monthly, weekly, and daily STAR benchmarking reports to more than 38,000 hotel clients, representing nearly 5 million rooms worldwide. STR Global and STR are now the world’s foremost sources of hotel performance trends and offer the definitive global hotel database and development pipeline.

“Randy is a truly deserving recipient of the ALIS Lifetime Achievement Award. His vision, hard work and integrity led to the development of an amazing company that has forever changed the way the hotel industry does business,” said Jim Burba, ALIS Conference Chair. “We’re a more transparent, professional and better industry today and Randy, and his company, can take a lot of credit for this.”

Smith is a member and past co-chairman of the Industry Real Estate Financing Advisory Council and the 2002 recipient of their prestigious C. Everett Johnson Award. He is also vice chair of the American Hotel & Lodging Foundation Funding Committee. He is a charter member of the International Society of Hospitality Consultants and a former member of the board of directors, and he was awarded their 1996 Industry Pioneer Award for outstanding contributions to the lodging industry. Smith is widely quoted in the industry as an authority on hotel industry performance and is a frequent keynote speaker at industry conferences.

Co-hosted by the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AH&LA) and Burba Hotel Network (BHN), the two-and-a-half-day event features an extensive array of seminars and panels hosted by leading experts and investors discussing important trends and identifying new opportunities. The conference attracts the lodging industry’s leading hotel executives, investors, lenders, developers and professional advisory community. Proceeds from ALIS benefit the educational, research, and training missions of the Educational Institute (EI) of the American Hotel & Lodging Education Foundation (AH&LEF), AH&LA’s nonprofit affiliate.

Registration is now open for the 2010 conference via the ALIS Website at . Delegates can save US$150 by registering before September 25, 2009. For general event information and sponsor opportunities, please visit the Website or contact Jonathon Zink, BHN director, at (714) 540-9300 or [email protected].

Serving the hospitality industry for nearly a century, AH&LA is the sole national association representing all sectors and stakeholders in the lodging industry, including individual hotel property members, hotel companies, student and faculty members, and industry suppliers. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., AH&LA provides members with national advocacy on Capitol Hill, public relations and image management, education, research and information, and other value-added services to provide bottom line savings and ensure a positive business climate for the lodging industry. Partner state associations provide local representation and additional cost-saving benefits to members.

AH&LEF is the charitable fund-raising and endowed fund-management subsidiary of the American Hotel & Lodging Association. Founded in 1953, AH&LEF is the premier organization for scholarships, professional certification, and instructional material as well as funding for hospitality industry research.

BHN is the worldwide leader in developing and organizing conferences for the hotel and tourism investment community. With more than two decades of experience, over 70 events completed to date, and more than 56,000 international delegates, BHN conferences have become “must attend” events for industry leaders who come together to network, conduct business and to learn about the latest trends. BHN events include the Americas Lodging Investment Summit (ALIS) in San Diego; the ALIS Summer Update in Los Angeles; the Central America Tourism & Hotel Investment Exchange (CATHIE); the Caribbean Hotel & Resort Investment Summit (CHRIS) in Miami; the Hotel Investment Conference Asia Pacific (HICAP) in Hong Kong; HICAP UPDATE Singapore; HICAP UPDATE Japan in Tokyo; the Hotel Investment Forum India (HIFI) in Mumbai; and the PATA CEO Challenge in Bangkok. The BHN website at www.Burba.com is the gateway for information about the conferences BHN produces, as well as a direct link to important players in the hospitality investment world.

Kathryn Potter
202.289.3130
AH&LA