Hotel Cancellations Rise Again After FBI Alert
Hotel occupancy last month fell about 30% in Orange and Los Angeles counties, with downtown Los Angeles taking the biggest hit. Analysts said visitors gradually have been returning, but the recovery is fragile.
Hotels fielded a stream of cancellations Friday, the day after the FBI issued its first public alert warning of possible terrorist attacks in the next several days.
Russell Cox, general manager of WestCoast Anaheim Hotel, said a group of 250 convention-goers that had reassured him of its plans earlier in the week canceled its four-night event. “It hurts,” said Cox, who told more than 50 housekeepers and banquet workers Friday that their hours would be cut.
At Holiday Inn Los Angeles Downtown, occupancy this month has been running at roughly half the normal 60% level in October, and the latest public scare has brought even more cancellations for next week, said general manager Sabir Jaffer.
September was a disastrous month for hotels in downtown Los Angeles, where average occupancy plunged 50% from a year ago, according to preliminary figures released Friday by PKF Consulting.
The hotel consultancy said the September occupancy rate for Los Angeles County overall was 55%, down from 78% in the same month last year. In Orange County, the occupancy rate dropped to 51% from 74% a year ago.
Bruce Baltin of PKF Consulting said Friday that it was too early to project occupancy figures for October. But he said he expects to see a slight improvement this month and through year’s end, as hotels have cut rates to keep visitors coming. In September, room rates in Los Angeles County dropped $6 from a year ago to an average of $113, while Orange County’s average room rate increased slightly, to $115.
“Downtown L.A. got clobbered in September,” Baltin said, because of its greater reliance on international tourists, business travelers and out-of-state convention visitors. He said its lower occupancy was consistent with those in other major cities across the country, although PKF did not yet have comparable September figures for other metro areas. Other national reports have shown that hotels in rural areas are generally faring better, buoyed by car travelers.
The severity of the decline in downtown Los Angeles has prompted hoteliers and merchants, along with tourism officials, to scramble to fill the void left by foreign visitors, who accounted for one-third of the $13.6 billion in tourism spending in L.A. County last year.
Executives from downtown hotels, restaurants, museums and other attractions met this week to devise promotions aimed at luring more visitors from the surrounding region. Dubbed “Discover Downtown,” the effort will promote weekend hotel, restaurant and ticket packages centered on a variety of interests, from shopping and art to sports and architecture, said Carol Schatz, president and chief executive of the Central City Assn.
She said downtown businesses also are crafting midweek packages to attract more regional business travelers and group meetings. Schatz said the group hopes to launch the Discover Downtown program within 30 days via cable television and print advertising, though the size of the marketing budget has yet to be determined.
“Everybody knows we have a problem,” Schatz said. “But we’re determined to work our way through to a solution.”
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Times staff writers Marla Dickerson and Daryl Strickland contributed to this report.
