If you’ve been to any hotel industry conferences in the past two decades, you probably know Mark Lomanno. He was the guy from Smith Travel Research with the scores and scores of PowerPoint slides, roaming the stage, talking a mile a minute about his favorite subject: the history, current health and future outlook for the hotel industry. Lomanno, who joined the fledgling Smith Travel Research in 1990, left the company at the end of last month to pursue new business passions and, more importantly, to spend time with his family. For 12 years, he was president of the company and recently moved into a role of strategic leadership for the hotel data supplier. He was also chairman of STR Global.

“I’ve been thinking about this for the last year or two,” says Lomanno, in discussing his departure from Nashville-based STR. “The 60-hour weeks and the non-stop travel starts to wear you down after a while. And I’d like to get back to the East Coast, where I’m from.”

We chatted with Lomanno last month before his departure from STR.

STR’s Mark Lomanno in his natural habitat, giving a presentation at an industry conference.

What’s next for you?
There are a couple of opportunities I’ll probably jump on, including sitting on the boards of companies that are in a stage where STR was 20 years ago. My favorite time at STR was when we went from 10 people to 50 people and made a name for ourselves in the industry.

Anything specific?
I’m going to join the board of newBrandAnalytics (a social business intelligence firm STR formed a partnership with last month) and help turn them from a social media harvesting standpoint to something like STR has accomplished with benchmarking. Barry Sternlicht and others are behind the company so it has the financial backing and contacts to be successful. Of course, it’s all about execution, which is one of the ways I can help. As much as companies fall in love in technology, this is the hospitality business, and people in this business like to be treated like they treat their own customers.

What is the health of STR as you leave?
It’s in great shape. There are always competitive pressures but that’s has always been true. It’s healthy and profitable. If that wasn’t the case, I probably wouldn’t have made this decision.

What’s been your biggest frustration with the hotel business?
As a non-operator and an observer of the business, one of the things that always struck me is the industry was never as good at it as it needed to be in holding rates. When I was a kid, room rates weren’t necessarily negotiable. Somehow over the past 30 years, the hotel industry has made them a negotiable commodity. You don’t go into a restaurant and see the price on the menu for a steak is $20 and say, “I’ll give you $16 for it.”

Are you surprised with the quickness and strength of the rebound in the hotel industry?
The fact it rebounded isn’t a surprise. But the vitality of the rebound was a surprise, that demand came back as quickly as it did. In 2010, demand rose 7.4%, which was a surprise to me. Everyone may have misjudged what economic factors drive the lodging industry today. We thought the industry would have trouble rebounding before unemployment came down, but that didn’t happen. There may be different fundamentals at play than there were historically.

Any other surprises?
With that level of rebound in demand I thought rates would rise faster than they have. RevPAR numbers have been pretty strong, but until recently they’ve been primarily driven by occupancy.

Even though supply growth is constrained at present, aren’t there are a lot of pressures to develop hotels?
Absolutely. It’s the growth engine for the franchise companies. They can only grow so much for so long from conversions, and ultimately they’ve got to get back to new construction. In the meantime, the industry will be in pretty good shape, particularly if the economy rebounds a little bit.

What’s been most satisfying about your years at STR?
Being a part of helping STR grow. When I started, there were just four employees and it was a fledgling company.

What is the secret to STR’s highly regarded corporate culture?
The secret is there is no difference between doing something for the company and doing something for the employees. My job was to give people the tools and to be a cheerleader for them to get the job done. I get a lot of credit for the stuff they did.

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