Summer Business Improves Slightly at County Hotels : Lodging: Figures show visitors came to the area despite dire predictions that tourism would sag in the wake of the earthquakes and riots.

Despite dire predictions at the start of the season, Orange County hotels showed a mild improvement in their summertime business, according to figures released Monday.

Occupancy averaged 70.3% in June, the first month of the vacation season, a 1.3% increase from the same month last year, PKF Consulting in Los Angeles reported. For the first six months of the year, the occupancy rate was 63%, up 1.2%.

Room prices also increased in June. The average was $74.09 a night in Orange County, up 1.2% from June, 1991. For the first half of this year, travelers paid an average of $76.98, up 1.7%.

Executives at some major Orange County hotels say their business has been building all summer and that gains were particularly strong in August.

The optimistic figures followed predictions that summer tourism would sag across Southern California in the wake of the Los Angeles riots, the earthquakes and California’s weak economy. Instead, the numbers indicate that visitors came anyway.

To some extent, Orange County may have gained from Los Angeles’ troubles, said Bruce Baltin, director of PKF Consulting, a service that gives advice to executives in the hotel industry. Some tourists decided to stay in suburban areas that they deemed safer, he said.

“The riots have not shut down the city. People are staying in outlying areas,” he said. Orange County benefited, along with Pasadena and the San Gabriel Valley.

That effect was most evident in northern Orange County, which had a 69.8% hotel occupancy rate for June, a 12.5% increase from the same month last year. South County and the John Wayne Airport area posted smaller gains. In the Anaheim area, which was hurt by weak convention attendance, the occupancy rate was 74.6%, down 3.8%.

Local hotel executives say the riots had a relatively mild negative effect in Orange County, which was more than outweighed by the summer air-fare war, which packed jetliners with vacationers; the weak American dollar, which attracted international tourists, and economic improvements outside California that boosted domestic travel.

“The summer has been very good to us. We had one of the strongest Julys in the last five years,” said David Robbins, director of sales for the Anaheim Marriott. The convention business is soft, he said, and many Japanese are vacationing elsewhere this year. But the airline discounting “drove a lot of short-term occupancy.”

Cody Plott, regional vice president of the Hyatt Hotel chain in Los Angeles, said that the surprisingly strong summer showing resulted from “a lot of things,” including the improved travel economy and Walt Disney Co.’s cascade of advertising to support its “Fantasmic!” show at its Disneyland theme park in Anaheim. Hyatt operates the Hyatt Regency Alicante in Garden Grove, the Hyatt Newporter in Newport Beach and the Hyatt Regency Irvine.

Henry Schielein, general manager of the tony Ritz-Carlton hotel in Dana Point, said August business was excellent. The summer season began unusually well this year, he noted. The Orange County skies are typically overcast in June, he said, discouraging beach activity. But this summer started out warm and sunny, which helped fill rooms.

Hotel California

Despite the lingering recession, hotel occupancy in Orange County increased during the first six months of the year from the same period in 1991 in every area except the airport. North 1991, 6 months: 53.8% 1992, 6 months: 59.4% Anaheim 1991, 6 months: 65.0% 1992, 6 months: 66.0% Airport 1991, 6 months: 61.1% 1992, 6 months: 59.9% South 1991, 6 months: 61.6% 1992, 6 months: 62.1% Average Daily Room Rate

In every area except Anaheim innkeepers got less for their rooms during the first six months of this year than they did a year earlier:

Area 1991 1992 % Change Anaheim $75.85 $79.59 +4.9% South 99.06 96.69 -2.4% Airport 80.15 78.50 -2.1% North 57.95 56.97 -1.7%

Visitors’ Preference In Cost...

Orange County hotels with rooms priced between $100 and $135 a night had the highest percentage of space filled in the first half:

Cost of Room Occupancy Rate Less than $35 63.8% $35.01 to $55 56.8% $55.01 to $75 63.7% $75.01 to 100 66.0% $100.01 to $135 68.8% More than $135 60.1%

The largest and smallest hotel complexes had the highest percentage of their rooms filled:

Size of Hotel Occupancy Rate Less than 100 Rooms 65.3% 100 to 199 Rooms 60.6% 200 to 299 Rooms 56.9% 300 to 600 Rooms 64.0% More than 600 Rooms 69.2%

Source: PKF Consulting