Local Hotel Industry’s Welcome Mat Well-Received in ’93 : Travel: Anaheim, Santa Ana boost occupancy rate. Corporate relocations from L.A. is one reason for gains.

Orange County’s hotel industry showed strong gains in 1993 and fared far better than that in Los Angeles County, according to a survey released this week.

Hotels in the Anaheim and Santa Ana area boosted the county’s overall occupancy rate for the year by four percentage points to 69.3%, according to a report published by accounting firm Arthur Andersen & Smith Travel Research, a Tennessee-based consultant to the hotel industry.

By contrast, the occupancy rate for Los Angeles metropolitan area hotels fell by more than a point to 62.6%, while the rate for San Diego decreased slightly to 66.1%.

One reason for the gain in Orange County is corporate relocations from downtown Los Angeles, said Cheryl L. Phelps, regional manager for eight Hyatt hotels in the two counties. “Businesses are finding Orange County more desirable,” she said.

For this year, the outlook is more positive than in 1993 for Los Angeles, Phelps said. Downtown hotels were filled with federal emergency management agents, Red Cross workers and insurance investigators following the Jan. 17 earthquake, she said.

Gary Sherwin, spokesman for the Los Angeles Convention & Visitors Bureau, said that the newly expanded Los Angeles Convention Center, which was completed in November, will also boost Los Angeles figures for 1994.

“Downtown hasn’t had group business. It has had to rely on individual business travel,” Sherwin said, contrasting it with Orange County’s popular Anaheim Convention Center.

In coming months, tourism stimulated by the World Cup competition in Los Angeles should also benefit hotels across the region, the study said.

The Host Report, as the study is called, surveyed 2,700 full-service hotels nationwide.

“The full-service hotels handle primarily meetings business, and that has been strong here,” said Reint Reinders, president of the San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau. “The element we have struggled with is the discretionary individual traveler who drives here for a couple of days.”

How O.C. Hotels Fared in 1993

Though room rates dropped, profit per room increased 45% last year over 1992. How Orange County’s hotel industry performed compared to those in Los Angeles and San Diego counties:

Orange Los Angeles San 1992 1993 1992 1993 1992 Occupancy rate 65% 69% 64% 63% 66% Avg. number of rooms 372 372 402 412 362 Avg. rate $77.60 $73.54 $87.72 $80.40 $80.15 Revenue per room $29,665 $29,040 $33,975 $30,284 $32,118 Profit per room $4,542 $6,579 $3,981 $2,784 $5,519

Diego 1993 Occupancy rate 66% Avg. number of rooms 345 Avg. rate $82.79 Revenue per room $36,084 Profit per room $6,728

Source: The Host Report; Researched by JANICE L. JONES / Los Angeles Times