CoStar Acquires Hotel Data Provider STR for $450M
By Rebecca Baird-Remba October 1, 2019 2:13 pm
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Commercial real estate data giant CoStar (CSGP) Group plans to acquire STR, one of the country’s largest hotel data aggregators, the companies announced Tuesday.
CoStar will pay $450 million for the company in an all-cash deal that is scheduled to close in the fourth quarter of this year. The Wall Street Journal broke the news of the sale. STR, which is based in Hendersonville, Tenn., collects data from 65,000 hotels worldwide, including nine million guest rooms in 180 countries.
The acquisition will give CoStar, which specializes in collecting information on office and industrial properties, access to a major source of hotel data. Although CoStar collects basic information about hotel properties, STR offers data on occupancy rates, room rates and revenue per room. STR also expects that CoStar’s large platform and sales team will help expand STR’s reach outside of the U.S.
“The STR team has built an extraordinary company that partners with the hotel industry to create benchmarks and analytics that are the primary tools hotel management and investors rely on to optimize and improve their assets,” said Andrew C. Florance, the CEO of CoStar Group.
Founded in 1985 as Smith Travel Research, STR now employs 370 workers in 15 countries. It is expected to generate $64 million in revenue this year, according to a press release from the two companies.
“CoStar brings leading technologies, analytics and sales capabilities that we believe will enable STR to accelerate growth and increase the value and insights we provide to our hospitality clients,” said STR CEO Amanda Hite in prepared remarks.
