STR Hotel News Now

HENDERSONVILLE, Tennessee and MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin – The Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index ended August at 1828, a 6.7-percent decrease for the month and a 14.0-percent increase for year-to-date 2010. The Index ended 2009 at 1603.

Robert W. Baird & Co. (Baird) and STR partnered to create the Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index—the first widely available U.S. hotel stock index in the industry. The index combines Baird’s financial markets expertise, the data processing of STR and the industry’s leading news website, HotelNewsNow.com.

“August was a terrible month for the stock market in general, and hotel stocks were no exception,” said Randy Smith, STR’s CEO. “Dropping 6.7 percent for the month, the Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index reflected the growing concern about the direction of the economy and the travel industry. So while industry fundamentals continue to gradually improve, investors are clearly anxious about the strength and duration of the rebound.”

“The key issue facing investors in hotel stocks is the strength of the economy,” said David Loeb, managing director of Baird’s hotel research platform. “During the last month, investors have become nervous about the sustainability of the economic recovery, and hotel stocks have been hit hard as a result. We expect hotel shares to remain volatile near term until a clearer consensus emerges about hotel demand trends for the rest of 2010 and 2011.”

About the Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index

The Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index was set to equal 1000 on 1 January 2000, as its starting point. The Index reached its peak of 3178 on 5 July 2007. The Index’s lowest point occurred on 6 March 2009, when it dropped to 573.

The Index is available exclusively on and . The Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index is a co-branded index created by Robert W. Baird & Co. (Baird) and Smith Travel Research, Inc. (STR). The market-cap weighted Index is comprised of 15 of the largest market capitalization hotel companies publicly traded on a U.S. exchange and attempts to characterize the performance of hotel stocks. The Index is maintained by Baird and is hosted on . The Index is not actively managed and a direct investment cannot be made in it.

The current companies that comprise the Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index: Ashford Hospitality Trust, Choice Hotels International, DiamondRock Hospitality, FelCor Lodging Trust, Hersha Hospitality Trust, Hospitality Properties Trust, Host Hotels & Resorts, Hyatt Hotels, InterContinental Hotels Group, LaSalle Hotel Properties, Marriott International, Orient-Express Hotels, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Sunstone Hotel Investors and Wyndham Worldwide.

About Baird

Baird is an employee-owned, international wealth management, capital markets, private equity and asset management firm with offices in the United States, Europe and Asia. Established in 1919, Baird has more than 2,400 associates serving the needs of individual, corporate, institutional and municipal clients. Baird oversees and manages client assets of more than $78 billion. Committed to being a great place to work, Baird ranked number 11 on FORTUNE’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” in 2010 – its seventh consecutive year on the list. Baird’s principal operating subsidiaries are Robert W. Baird & Co. in the United States and Robert W. Baird Group Ltd. in Europe. Baird also has an operating subsidiary in Asia supporting Baird’s private equity operations. For more information, please visit Baird’s Web site at .

About STR

STR provides clients—including hotel operators, developers, financiers, analysts and suppliers to the hotel industry—access to hotel research with regular and custom reports covering North America, Mexico and Caribbean. STR provides a single source of global hotel data covering daily and monthly performance data, forecasts, annual profitability, pipeline and census information. STR founded the STR family of companies and is proudly associated with STR Global, RRC Associates, STR Analytics, and . For more information, please visit .

Jeff Higley (STR)
VP, Digital Media & Communications
+1 (615) 824-8664 ext. 3318
HotelNewsNow