Nashville is STR’s first U.S. forward STAR market

Nashville is the first active U.S. market for STR‘s Forward STAR, which allows hotels to benchmark future occupancy on the books against the marketplace.

“It is fitting that Nashville would be our first Forward STAR market in the U.S. given STR’s close proximity to and history with Music City,” said Amanda Hite, STR’s president. “That relationship aside, this is a win for local hoteliers, who are now able to combine their historical benchmarking reports with directly sourced forward-looking data that will add to strategic discussions around distribution, revenue management and marketing. We are currently servicing 86 Forward STAR areas around the globe with data collection ongoing in seven other North American markets—Austin, Denver, Miami, Minneapolis, Montreal, Oahu and Washington, D.C.”

Nashville observations from the latest Forward STAR update include:

Weekends, especially Fridays, remain the top occupancy nights in the market.
High levels of pickup, the difference in one Forward STAR reporting period to the next, show shorter booking windows are popular.
Nashville currently shows zero nights in December with occupancy on the books of 70% or higher. In December 2019, eight such nights actualized.
Groundwater Week, which is expected to attract thousands of professionals from all sectors of the groundwater industry, is pushing three weekday nights (December 13-15) to levels comparable to weekends.
December 29-30 still shows under 20% with significant pickup expected once the college football matchup is announced for the Music City Bowl.
New Year’s Eve currently sits at 26.7% occupancy on the books. The same night in 2019 actualized at 67.8%.