At Hotels, One for the Books

Hotels in Los Angeles County are enjoying their best year in recent memory.

This represents not just a renaissance of tourism in our suddenly disaster-free region, but also an increase in business travel.

In fact, top hotels in some key parts of the city are so booked that last-minute business travelers at times have trouble finding a room.

“Believe me, we’re busy,” said Randy Villareal, general manager of the Regal Biltmore in downtown Los Angeles.

“The first half of this year has been extremely active,” Villareal said. “I would imagine that all of the hotels are experiencing fairly significant increases in occupancy.”

They are, according to PKF Consulting of Los Angeles, which tracks the hotel industry. All areas of the city recorded increases in hotel occupancy in the first six months of the year, research shows. Room rates were up everywhere except downtown, which recorded a dip.

“This is the strongest it’s been year-to-date . . . certainly for at least 10 years and probably since the late 1970s,” said Bruce Baltin, senior vice president of PKF. “This was supposed to be a relatively soft year.”

Citywide, the hotel occupancy rate was 74.34% in the first half of the year, up 4.8% from the same period last year. The average room rate was $96.78, up 7.3%.

While tourism has remained strong after a “phenomenal” 1996, the difference this year has been business travel, Baltin said.

Michael Collins, senior vice president of the Los Angeles Convention & Visitors Bureau, attributed the booming business to increased corporate and personal discretionary income and an improving image for Los Angeles--or, as he put it, “the closing of the gap between media-cultivated negative perceptions and the positive reality of Los Angeles.”

But Baltin has a theory he can’t yet prove: that the restructuring of many businesses in the region into smaller firms and the decentralization of larger companies have boosted business travel in recent years. That’s because the smaller companies are aggressively doing business with smaller firms in other regions and the decentralized companies are keeping in touch with their divisions, he said.

“Commercial and business travel between Northern and Southern California and states that border California has increased in the last few years,” Baltin said.

Business travelers who book at the last minute sometimes have trouble finding rooms in Beverly Hills, Santa Monica and other parts of the Westside, as well as near Los Angeles International Airport and even in the once-struggling downtown on occasion, Baltin said. Hotels with rooms at $100 and up are “at pretty close to capacity.”

Long Beach recorded the biggest jump in hotel occupancy for the first half of 1997, up 12.2% to 69.27%. Downtown was close behind with a 10% increase to 66.01%. The highest occupancy rate was in the San Gabriel Valley at 88.39%--virtually all of it business travel--followed by Santa Monica at 82.52% and the Culver City/Marina area at 82.51%.

Whatever the cause, all the activity makes for a nice change, Villareal said.

“I’ve been here for 10 years and I have more bad memories than good ones,” he said.

California, Family Style

California was the second-most popular destination for traveling U.S. families last year, according to the Travel Industry Assn. of America.

A survey of 1,200 adults found that more families hit the road in 1996 and 8% of those that left their home region chose California. First place went to Florida, with 11%. Nevada, North Carolina, Texas, Colorado and Massachusetts tied for third with 4%. Most families stick pretty close to home when they travel, the association said.

Nancy Rivera Brooks can be reached via e-mail at nancy.rivera.brooks@latimes.com or by fax at (213) 237-7837.