The more things stay the same, the more they change.
The Business Journal’s list of Orange County hotels ranked by room count has one new entry—No. 42 Marriott Irvine Spectrum, with 271 rooms. Hotel broker and consultant Atlas Hospitality Group in Irvine reports two additional new OC hotels opening last year—the 130-room Lido House in Newport Beach and 164-room Hampton Inn & Suites in Irvine—neither of which meet the 250-room cutoff for inclusion on the list.
The trio of 2018 debuts suggests not much has changed on a list that rarely changes.
Well, that’s about to change.
Atlas said 14 hotels with more than 3,100 rooms were under construction at the end of last year; eight hotels and 1,600 rooms were under construction at year-end 2017.
That—and continued strength in room rates and occupancy—indicate the horizon holds a skyline of new properties for leisure and business travelers alike.
Posh Mouse
The largest hotel under construction is Wincome Group’s 613-room Westin Anaheim Resort, next to Anaheim Convention Center. On Katella Avenue near GardenWalk’s retail shops and restaurants, the 466-room JW Marriott, co-developed by Bill O’Connell and Ajesh Patel, is also underway.
The two will be the first four-diamond-level properties to open in the city since 2001. Five other hotels are under construction in Anaheim, with room renovations and overall upgrades likely at several more.
The debut of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge is a driver of that. The new attraction, part of a $1 billion investment at Disneyland Resort, opens on May 31 (see story, page 1). That evening, Disney will host opening event festivities welcoming a key trade show to Anaheim Convention Center (see story, page 25).
And luxe (see story, page 20) is not limited to Anaheim and environs.
Irvine-based Montage International’s flagship Montage Laguna Beach resort recently wrapped a public-and-private spaces renovation, including enhancements at its 20,000-square-foot spa.
Up the coast in Huntington Beach, Waterfront Beach Resort, a Hilton Hotel added its second tower’s worth of rooms to the list in 2018—spiking its ranking from No. 40 to No. 18, where it remains this year—and in October added a new 8,000-square-foot Drift Spa.
Plans are now underway for renovation of the older first tower, rising 12 floors into the sky with 290 rooms.
Rooms, Rates
All this development could affect future lists but more crucially it matters for OC’s hospitality and tourism overall.
Numbers are strong.
Hotel employment at the 52 properties on the list was up 2% to about 16,700.
The properties offer some 22,000 rooms; average starting weekday rates are down just a buck to $220; average starting weekend rates are up 3.5% to $240, according to Business Journal research.
Coastal hotels including Montage, Monarch Beach Resort and Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel, both in Dana Point (see City View, page 63), are priciest on the list, running about $600 to $900 per night.
OC hotels in the first quarter had an occupancy rate of 79%, according to CBRE Hotels in Los Angeles—down a tick year-over-year but right at the edge of what the industry considers full occupancy, 80%.
Revenue per available room—or RevPAR—was about $154 countywide in the quarter; Newport Beach had the highest room revenue at about $229.
CBRE, working with data from industry tracker STR Global in Hendersonville, Tenn., said U.S. hotels overall hit all-time highs in occupancy, RevPAR, and average daily rates.
