Second, although the STR database is the largest available in the hotel industry, it
does not disclose actual names of owners, brands, and operators, which in turn limits
interpretation of the results. A particularly interesting question for future research is:
Which owners, brands, and operators are superior or inferior to others? Future studies
linking specific brand, operator and owner names will be able to further examine
firm-specific characteristics and their effects on hotel performance. Another limitation
of the STR database is that it only consisted of the hotels in the US at the time of this
study. Therefore, whether the findings can be generalized to the hotel industry in other
countries remain unknown. For example, a recent study shows that, when
well-established brands pursue international expansion through management
contracts, their core competence related to their management expertise, such as
human resources, may be influenced (Gannon et al., 2010). Panvisavas and Taylor’s
(2006) study also revealed that the practice of management contract was different in
Thailand compared to in the USA. Consequently, it is reasonable to suspect that the
effects of brand and/or operator on hotel financial performance may vary in different
countries. However, since the US-based STR became STR Global after it merged with
the U.K.-based market data provider The Bench and Deloitte’s HotelBenchmarke in
2008, hotels in more countries, particularly in Europe and Asia, have increasingly
participated in the new STR Global’s database. When data from more countries
become available, similar studies could be conducted to investigate and compare how
hotel owners’ corporate strategies could affect hotel performance in various countries