How to read a hotel STAR report: Occupancy, ADR, RevPAR and index scores explained

It's one of those industry fixtures that gets referenced in meetings, forecasts and owner reviews as though everyone already knows.

Most people figure it out eventually. But if you want a clear explanation of what a STAR report contains, what the metrics mean and how to use it properly, this guide covers all of it.

It breaks down:

• what a hotel STAR report is

• how STR reports work

• what metrics like ADR, RevPAR, MPI and RGI mean

• how hotels use STR benchmarking data

• where STAR reports are useful and where they have limitations

Key takeaways

• STAR reports are hotel benchmarking reports produced by STR that compare a hotel's occupancy, ADR and RevPAR performance against a competitive set.

• Hotels submit anonymized performance data to STR in exchange for access to market benchmarking reports.

• Key STAR report metrics include occupancy, ADR, RevPAR, MPI, ARI and RGI.

• An index score above 100 means a hotel is outperforming its competitive set.

• STAR reports are widely used for budgeting, forecasting, owner reporting and revenue strategy reviews.

• Because STAR reports are historical, many hotels also use daily benchmarking and forward-looking market data to support faster commercial decisions.

What is a hotel STAR report?

A STAR report is a hotel benchmarking report produced by STR, formerly known as Smith Travel Research, a hospitality data and analytics company owned by CoStar Group.

The report compares a hotel's performance against a selected competitive set and broader market using anonymized industry data submitted by participating hotels.

STAR stands for: Smith Travel Accommodations Report

Hotels use STAR reports to measure key revenue management metrics including:

• occupancy

• average daily rate (ADR)

• revenue per available room (RevPAR)

• market share indexes

The report helps hotels understand whether they are outperforming, matching or underperforming their competitors.

What's the difference between STR and STAR?

The terms "STR report" and "STAR report" are often used interchangeably, but they are slightly different.

STR is the company that collects and analyzes hotel benchmarking data.

STAR report is the specific benchmarking report produced by STR.

In practice, most hoteliers use both terms to describe the same benchmarking report.

Why hotels use STAR reports

A hotel's raw performance numbers rarely tell the full story on their own.

For example:

• a 75% occupancy rate might look strong

• but if nearby competitors are running at 88%, your hotel may still be losing market share

STAR reports provide the market context behind your numbers.

Hotels commonly use STAR reports for:

• weekly and monthly revenue reviews

• budgeting and forecasting

• owner and asset manager reporting

• evaluating pricing strategy

• tracking market share

• monitoring event and seasonal demand

• measuring renovation or marketing impact

Some hotels also use STR data to evaluate whether pricing, promotions and hotel marketing strategies are improving market share.

For many hotel groups, STR indexes are also tied to performance targets and bonus structures.

Revenue Generation Index (RGI), in particular, is widely used as a benchmark for commercial performance across chains and management companies.

How hotels get STAR reports

Hotels receive STAR reports by participating in STR's data-sharing program.

To participate, a hotel submits operational performance data to STR regularly, including:

• rooms available

• rooms sold

• rooms revenue

STR calculates occupancy, ADR and RevPAR from those inputs, then aggregates and anonymizes the data before generating benchmarking reports.

Hotels can typically choose:

• daily reports

• weekly reports

• monthly reports

• custom market reports

Pricing varies depending on:

• reporting frequency

• market coverage

• level of detail

• subscription type

Some hotel chains already include STR reporting access within broader corporate reporting systems.

What metrics are included in a STAR report?

STAR reports focus on a core set of hotel revenue management performance metrics used to evaluate market performance and competitive positioning.

STAR report metrics explained

Most STAR reports also include:

• year-over-year comparisons

• ranking within the compset

• segmentation data

• weekday vs weekend performance

• market trend comparisons

What do MPI, ARI and RGI mean?

These three indexes are some of the most important metrics in a STAR report because they show how your hotel performs relative to competitors.

MPI (Market Penetration Index)

MPI measures occupancy performance compared to your competitive set.

Formula: MPI = (your occupancy ÷ compset occupancy) × 100

An MPI above 100 means your hotel is capturing more occupancy share than competitors.

Example: MPI of 110 = your hotel captured 10% more occupancy share than the compset average

ARI (Average Rate Index)

ARI compares your ADR against competitors.

Formula: ARI = (your ADR ÷ compset ADR) × 100

An ARI above 100 means your hotel achieved a higher average room rate than the compset.

Example: ARI of 105 = your ADR was 5% higher than the competitive set average

RGI (Revenue Generation Index)

RGI compares RevPAR performance against the compset.

Formula: RGI = (your RevPAR ÷ compset RevPAR) × 100

It combines occupancy and rate performance into a single metric and is often considered the most important STAR report index.

Example: RGI of 115 = your hotel generated 15% more RevPAR than competitors

RevPAR is the hotel industry's key top-line performance metric and a leading indicator of commercial health, though it should be read alongside cost and total-revenue measures, since it captures rooms revenue only.

What is a good index score in a STAR report?

In STAR reports, an index score of 100 represents market parity.

• Above 100 = outperforming the compset

• Below 100 = underperforming the compset

Generally:

• 100–105 suggests competitive alignment

• 110+ indicates strong outperformance

• below 95 may signal pricing or demand issues

However, context is important.

Index scores are only meaningful if the compset is well constructed. A luxury hotel benchmarked against lower-tier properties may show an inflated index that doesn't reflect genuine outperformance. Reviewing whether your compset still reflects your true competitive market is as important as reading the scores themselves.

A hotel with very high ADR but weak occupancy may still underperform on total revenue generation. That's why many revenue managers prioritize RGI over individual occupancy or ADR indexes.

How to read a hotel STAR report

At first glance, STAR reports can look overwhelming because they contain multiple tables, time periods and benchmarking layers.

But most reports follow the same basic structure.

Step 1: Review occupancy, ADR and RevPAR

Start with the core KPIs:

• occupancy

• ADR

• RevPAR

These show your hotel's raw performance for the selected period.

Step 2: Compare your indexes and ranking

Next, look at:

• MPI

• ARI

• RGI

These reveal whether your hotel is outperforming or lagging behind the compset.

Also check your rank within the compset for each metric. A ranking of 3 of 7, for example, means your hotel placed third out of seven properties. This tells you at a glance where you sit relative to specific competitors — useful context that the index score alone doesn't give you.

Step 3: Look for trends over time

Compare:

• year-over-year changes

• month-over-month movement

• seasonal patterns

• event-driven performance

Most hotels compare results against the same period last year to identify changes in demand and pricing performance.

A single week rarely tells the whole story.

Step 4: Analyze market position

The most useful thing a STAR report can do is tell you not just how you performed, but where your strategy might need adjusting.

If you're consistently outperforming on occupancy but lagging on ADR, that usually points to a pricing opportunity – you're capturing demand but leaving rate on the table. If your RGI is weak despite reasonable occupancy, the issue is likely rate mix or competitive positioning rather than demand.

The questions worth asking are:

• Are competitors growing faster than we are?

• Are we discounting too heavily?

• Are we losing occupancy share?

• Are we maximizing rate during high-demand periods?

The goal is not simply to track numbers. It's to understand why performance is changing and what action to take next.

Common mistakes hotels make with STAR reports

Focusing only on occupancy

High occupancy does not automatically mean strong revenue performance.

Hotels that fill rooms too cheaply may still underperform on RevPAR and RGI.

Using an outdated compset

A poor competitive set creates misleading benchmarks.

Competitive sets are typically built using factors like location, positioning, class and number of rooms.

Hotels should regularly review whether their compset still reflects their true market competitors.

Overreacting to short-term fluctuations

Single events, holidays or weather disruptions can distort short-term performance.

STAR reports are most valuable when analyzed consistently over time.

Ignoring forward-looking demand

The STAR report itself is historical – even the daily version reports on dates that have already passed.

STR does offer separate forward-looking products for on-the-books pacing data, but the STAR report is not one of them. That's why many commercial teams combine historical benchmarking with forward-looking demand and pacing data to get a fuller picture of where performance is heading.

Understanding what STAR reports don't cover

STAR reports are built around rooms revenue. They don't capture food and beverage, ancillary revenue or other income streams, so they won't reflect the full commercial picture for hotels where non-rooms revenue is significant.

Because results show group averages across the compset, you also can't see how individual competitors are performing. You can identify that your occupancy index has softened, but not which specific property is gaining share or why.

Qualitative factors – guest satisfaction, brand perception, service quality – aren't captured either. A hotel can outperform on RGI while losing ground on experience metrics that eventually affect demand.

None of this makes STAR reports less valuable. It means they work best as one input among several, combined with internal data, forward-looking tools and broader market intelligence.

STAR reports vs modern hotel benchmarking platforms

STAR reports remain one of the hospitality industry's most established benchmarking tools.

But many revenue teams now supplement them with platforms that provide:

• daily benchmarking updates

• interactive dashboards

• forward-looking pacing data

• pickup analysis

• dynamic competitor tracking

Some hotel teams also supplement STAR reports with real-time operational data from internal systems, pacing tools and forward-looking demand signals.

Comparing approaches:

For many hotels, the two approaches work together rather than replacing one another.

STR benchmarking often remains important for:

• owner reporting

• budgeting

• industry-standard benchmarking

At the same time, many revenue teams also rely on daily commercial visibility to support pricing and forecasting decisions between reporting cycles.

How Lighthouse Performance supports hotel benchmarking

Lighthouse Performance helps hotel commercial teams combine benchmarking, business intelligence and forward-looking visibility in one platform, with daily PMS-connected updates across occupancy, ADR, RevPAR, pickup and pacing.

Smart Compset lets hotels benchmark against properties that reflect actual market competition and booking behavior rather than relying only on static hotel attributes.

The goal is not to replace industry benchmarking standards, but to give commercial teams a more operational view of market performance between traditional reporting cycles.

Final thoughts

STAR reports have been a fixture of hotel commercial strategy for decades, and for good reason. They provide a consistent, industry-standard view of how your property is performing relative to the market; the kind of context that raw internal numbers can't give you on their own.

Their limitation is also straightforward: they tell you what happened, not what's about to happen. For hotels that want to stay ahead of the market rather than explain it retrospectively, historical benchmarking works best alongside forward-looking demand data, pacing analysis and daily market monitoring.

Used together, those inputs give commercial teams a much clearer picture of where to focus, and more confidence when the time comes to make a call.

FAQs

What is a hotel STAR report?

A hotel STAR report is a benchmarking report produced by STR that compares a hotel's occupancy, ADR and RevPAR performance against a selected competitive set and market.

What does MPI mean in a STAR report?

MPI stands for Market Penetration Index. It measures a hotel's occupancy performance relative to its competitive set. Formula: MPI = (your occupancy ÷ compset occupancy) × 100.

What is a good RevPAR index?

An RGI above 100 means a hotel is outperforming its competitive set in RevPAR performance.

How often are STAR reports updated?

Hotels can receive STAR reports daily, weekly or monthly depending on their subscription type.

Are STAR reports anonymous?

Yes. STR aggregates and anonymizes hotel data so individual hotel performance cannot be identified publicly.