Hotel Occupancy Rebounds After Drop Following Quake

Orange County hotels posted a 14.2% increase in January room occupancy as the industry bounced back from the sharp drop caused by the Northridge earthquake in the same month last year, according to figures released Monday.

Hotels filled an average of 57.4% of their rooms in January, up from 50.2% in the same month last year, according to PKF Consulting in Los Angeles, a hotel industry consulting company. The average room rate declined 0.4% to $75.63 in January from $75.94 a year earlier.

The one-month surge in occupancy this year appears greater than normal because of the effects of the earthquake last year. When the temblor struck a year ago, travelers canceled their Southland vacations in droves. It was one of the worst in a series of California disasters to roil the local tourism industry.

In Orange County, the earthquake resulted in a 16% drop in room occupancy in January, 1994, so the 14% increase now shows that tourism is rebounding to pre-quake levels, according to PKF research associate Melissa Mills, who compiles the statistics.

“We are still below where we were in 1993, but we are creeping up,” she said.

The prime tourism destination of Anaheim showed a greater rebound than Orange County as a whole with 56.5% occupancy, up 18% over January, 1994. South Orange County had a 19.7% increase, followed by North Orange County with a 7.6% increase and the John Wayne Airport area with 6.6%.