List of Top Hotels Expanded; Hilton Anaheim Takes No. 1 Again

Orange County Business Journal, May 5-May 11, 2008 by Cain, Sandi

There's something new on this week's list of Orange County's largest hotels: more rankings.

With visitors to the county spending $8.3 billion last year and staying at a mix of hotels and motels, this year's list was expanded to give a better glimpse of people's lodging choices. The list, ranked by hotel rooms, includes an additional 39 hotels that have 150 or more rooms.

All the hotels on previous lists were considered full-service hotels because of their onsite restaurants and other amenities. This year's list added in some limited service hotels and a handful of the largest motels previously excluded.

The top 89 hotels here had a total room count of 28,176. The total number of suites was 6,656.

The Hilton Anaheim continued its hold on the No. 1 spot with 1,572 rooms. It's the second-largest hotel in Southern California, behind the Manchester Grand Hyatt in San Diego by about 50 rooms.

Hilton Anaheim has heard from its corporate office to "expect higher numbers of European travelers" this summer, said Brad Logsdon, director of sales at the hotel. It's also focusing on online bookings to keep hotel occupancy high, he said.

While the list is longer, no hotels opened here during the past year, though several are on the horizon. The only newcomer among the top 50 was Best Western Stovall's Inn in Anaheim, which cracked the ranks at No. 37 with 289 rooms.

Stovall's hotels were among the first in Anaheim to cater to the Disneyland visitors, but because they are considered motels, they previously weren't ranked.

Bill O'Connell, owner and operator of the Best Western Stovall's, said he expects this summer to be "OK but not great" in terms of guests-partly because there are 30 million people within driving distance of Anaheim who may stay closer to home during the economic downturn.

The hotels that are now ranked No. 51 to No. 60 once were among the 50 largest hotels. Other returnees include the Doubletree Guest Suites Doheny Beach at No. 64 and Portofino Inn & Suites Anaheim at No. 66. They got bumped down by new, larger hotels during the past decade.

Employment among the largest 50 hotels rose to 18,677 workers, up 2.5% from last year. Total employment for the 89 hotels was up 2.27% to 18,627.

A couple of smaller resorts also are part of the expanded list. Surf & Sand Resort in Laguna Beach debuted at No. 80 with 165 rooms and Newport Beach's Balboa Bay Club and Resort at No. 82 with 160 rooms.

A few hotels changed names, including the Four Points by Sheraton in Fullerton, now No. 48 Crowne Plaza Hotel Fullerton, and the Radisson Anaheun Maingate, now a Red Lion.

The move marks the return of the Red Lion chain to OC after a 10-year absence. The newly christened Red Lion Anaheim Maingate, at No. 30, is undergoing a renovation.

According to Los Angeles-based PKF Consulting, which tracks the hotel industry, OC hotels had an overall occupancy rate of 68.6% for January and February (the most recent data available), down from 70.1 % for the same period in 2007.

Through February, OC hotels posted an overall average daily rate of $154.71 compared to $144.78 a year ago, up 6.9%. The average daily rate has been on the rise industrywide in recent years as demand has increased while supply hasn't.

Anaheim still holds the lion's share of hotels on the list with 30, seven of them among the top 10 and 17 in the top 50. Those hotels account for 40% of the total rooms and 40% of the jobs on the list.

The largest 10 hotels account for 28% of the rooms and 34% of the workers.

Irvine has the second-most hotels of any OC city, with eight.

Others with multiple hotels on the list: Newport Beach, Garden Grove and Costa Mesa with seven each; Santa Ana with six; Dana Point at four, Huntington Beach, Fullerton and Buena Park with three each; Orange and Laguna Beach with two each. In all, 17 of OC's 34 cities are represented.

Of the 60 hotels that reported parking rates, 29 have free parking, with other rates ranging from a low of $7 a day at the Doubletree Irvine to a high of $30 a day at the St. Regis Resort, Monarch Beach. Seven hotels/motels on this year's list have no onsite restaurant service, including two among the top 60-No. 29 Howard Johnson and Best Western Stovall's. Food service at some of the other hotels includes only breakfast and/or evening appetizers.

This year, there were 1,738 hotel projects in the pipeline nationwide as of March 31. Only four are expected to open this year in OC: the 285-room Sheraton in Garden Grove, the 174-room Renaissance Club Sport in Aliso Viejo, the 204-room Resort at Pelican Hill-which also will have 128 villas-and the 253-unit timeshare WorldMark in Anaheim.

Further down the road are two hotels at Anaheim Garden Walk, across the street from Disneyland, which will have a total of about 800 rooms. Disney is in negotiations to manage those hotels. In April, the Anaheim City Council voted to allow some four-star hotels to pay less than the established room taxes to the city in order to encourage developers to build more high-end hotels that would keep Anaheim competitive in the convention market.