In the league of Business Journal lists, hotels sketch out a stable game. Room totals—the metric for this week’s list—pivot little, if at all.
Hilton Anaheim perennially tops the chart, followed by Anaheim Marriott at No. 2 and Disneyland Hotel at No. 3. Hyatt Regency hotels in Garden Grove and Huntington Beach are No. 5 and No. 9, and Irvine Co.-owned Hotel Irvine is again No. 7.
Total room count for the 51 properties with at least 250 rooms is 21,811, essentially flat year-over-year.
Big Wave
When rooms come or go, it’s usually a single-digit affair. A suite gets divvied up into two or three keys for more revenue, or some off-to-the-side room orphan, now oddly placed after a major renovation, becomes a property’s trendy food-and-beverage spot or an office-away-from-the-office for business guests.
• Tell that to Waterfront Beach Resort, Hilton Hotel in Huntington Beach, where a second tower is finally open, upping the hotel’s room count by 51%, and that will make its presence felt on next year’s Business Journal meeting space list. General Manager Paulette Fischer said she’s now grabbing events twice as big as the hotel could before.
Waterfront jumped 22 slots, leapfrogging almost half the list to No. 18 with 437 rooms. Its room rates start at $259 to $299, weekdays versus weekends, up about 8% year-over-year.
Broad Swath
Renovations don’t significantly alter room counts but can help business.
Howard Johnson Anaheim Hotel & Water Playground is a third of the way through a renovation of all of its rooms.
The 50-year-old property was designed by midcentury modernist William Pereira of University of California-Irvine’s layout and look, and it’s $6 million into translating the appeal into a “classic retro look and feel with soothing ice blue wall coverings, themed pillow décor, and vintage Disney art on the walls,” a spokesperson said via email.
It’s given up seven rooms in the process, down to 296 and putting it at No. 35 on the list. Starting room rates fell 10% to $159 to $179, but it hopes the change to be worth it as tourism amps up from new Disney attractions.
• On the other side of the county, Montage Laguna Beach, No. 49 with 250 rooms, completes a redo of its “founder’s suite” next month to offer up to three bedrooms and four baths, up from two and 2 ½.
Starting room rates at the resort are $795 to $895 a night, up 12%.
Best Days
This year’s list gives starting room rates for weekdays and weekends provided by the hotels or taken from their websites.
• At least two trends and a couple of conclusions emerge from the numbers, which range from a low of $94 weekdays at No. 43, Holiday Inn & Suites Anaheim, to a high of Montage’s weekend $895 starting point.
The two lines run in opposite directions, depending on location and whether it’s a business-class property or a tourist-focused hotel. The former are pricier during the week, with more revenue per available room; the latter hike rates on weekends.
There’s “high corporate demand generated during the week,” said Harry Pflueger, principal with Maxim Hotel Brokerage in Newport Beach, while “weekend travelers prefer to be closer to water and leisure attractions.”
One conclusion from the list’s averages of $218 weekdays, $232 weekends, is the balance between the two types.
One industry watcher, though, said, “it’s pretty cutthroat out there” for each type in off-peak times, which can make for more excitement than one might expect from a list of hotel rooms.
