Despite Some Doldrums, County Hotel Occupancy Rates Are Up

Yes, there is room at the inn.

Hotels in the Anaheim area had the highest occupancy levels in the county through the third quarter of the year, at 77.3%. But in the John Wayne Airport area and Newport Beach only 66.5% of the hotel rooms were occupied this year.

That’s according to Pannell Kerr Forster, an accounting firm and hotel consultant with an office in Newport Beach. The company also looked at hotels in the north Orange County area, which ran a 70.2% occupancy rate during the first nine months; and the southern part of the county, where hotels were 71.2% occupied.

But hotel operators should take heart, even in the beleaguered airport area: Occupancy rates are up over the first nine months of last year. Countywide the average occupancy rate was 73%, up from 70.1% last year.

That means average daily room rates, held down by all the new hotels proliferating around the county, started to rise this year everywhere but around the airport. The countywide average was $67.80 a night, up from $66.65 last year.

The most expensive hotel rooms, incidentally, were in the luxury hotels of southern Orange County, where the average rate was $91.38 a night.