Contact: Ali Agmen-Smith
Deloitte
Public Relations
+ 44 (0) 207 303 0514

Smith Travel Research (STR) and Deloitte have signed a letter of intent to combine their Non-North American hotel benchmarking businesses. The new entity will be known as STR Global (STRG) and, under the terms of the letter of intent, it will unite STR’s operations with Deloitte’s HotelBenchmark business to provide unprecedented and enhanced coverage of global lodging markets. 

Randy Smith, owner and founder of STR, and Alex Kyriakidis, Deloitte’s managing partner for real estate hospitality and leisure, announced their intentions to their global customer and client base.  “As our customers look globally for new opportunities, STRG is the platform to provide local and regional insights into hotel markets worldwide,” commented Randy Smith.  Alex Kyriakidis added: “Our combined capabilities provide unprecedented benefits to our customers as a result of enhanced access to data.  Operators, owners, banks and consultants will now have more extensive hotel data at their fingertips through STRG.”

Deloitte’s HotelBenchmark practice will remain in London and provide the backbone of the client services operations across Europe, Middle East and Asia.  All data collection and processing will continue to take place through the existing channels in Hendersonville, TN and London, UK. The websites for HotelBenchmark.com and smithtravelresearch.com will operate in tandem for the near future to ensure full data accessibility and client reporting.

Lorna Clarke, director of HotelBenchmark, commented: “In the short-term, we will provide our current clients regular up-to-date emailed reports to supplement the data they can download from our site.  Further product enhancements, in terms of more detailed reports and enhanced coverage, will follow in due course.  We look forward to servicing the needs of the global hotel community.”

The transaction is subject to contract and final regulatory approval. There is no assurance that the transaction will be implemented.

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About STR
Smith Travel Research, global partners with The Bench, is the recognized leader for U.S. Lodging Industry benchmarking. For over 20 years, STR has collected monthly and daily operating data and reported on the state of the North American lodging industry, maintaining one of the world's largest lodging industry databases and publishing an array of valued industry research. For more about STR and its global services, please call +1 (615)824-8664 or email info@smithtravelresearch.com.

About Deloitte
In this press release references to Deloitte are references to Deloitte & Touche LLP, which is among the country's leading professional services firms.  Deloitte & Touche LLP is the United Kingdom member firm of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu ("DTT"), a Swiss Verein whose member firms are separate and independent legal entities.  Neither DTT nor any of its member firms has any liability for each other's acts or omissions. Services are provided by member firms or their subsidiaries and not by DTT. Deloitte & Touche LLP is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority. The information contained in this press release is correct at the time of going to press