Long Beach hotel managers report that they are seeing stable to increasing growth in room occupancy and average daily room rates compared to last year. The steady business is attributed to hotel renovations, investments in the downtown area and the efforts of the Long Beach Area Convention & Visitors Bureau (CVB).

 

Bruce Baltin, managing director of the Los Angeles office of CBRE Hotels, said that occupancy rates of Long Beach hotels through the end of April were pacing about two percent ahead compared to the same period last year. Meanwhile, “The average daily room rate is roughly $171, up from $155 last year,” he said.

 

Revenue per available room – a metric that takes into account occupancy and average daily rate (ADR) – increased by 12.5% through the end of April, Baltin said. Nationally, hotels are averaging about a 4% increase this year, so Long Beach’s growth is quite healthy, he noted.

Kristi Allen, general manager of the Hotel Maya and vice president of operations for Ensemble Hotel Partners, expects the hotel to have the best July in its history this summer. The Maya has a number of outdoor games for guests, including this oversized Jenga game and a giant chess and checkers board. (Photograph by the Business Journal’s Larry Duncan)

 

The average occupancy rate of Long Beach hotels so far this year is 78%, the same percentage the city’s hotels ended on last year. Baltin called this rate “very strong for Long Beach,” adding that it’s the highest he has ever seen in the city.

 

So far this year, the Hotel Maya, a DoubleTree by Hilton hotel located on Queensway Bay, is pacing well ahead of last year, according to Kristi Allen, the hotel’s general manager and the vice president of hotel operations for Ensemble Hotel Partners. The hotel is experiencing a 26% occupancy increase compared to last year, but that’s somewhat skewed because about a quarter of the hotel’s rooms were out of commission last year for renovations, she explained.

 

“We thought this year that we would show large occupancy gains and maybe flatten out a little bit in the average rate, but we have actually seen significant growth in both areas,” Allen said. This trend is true of the Long Beach hotel market as a whole, she noted. ADR at the Hotel Maya is up about 10% year over year, she said.

 

Allen said she expects this July to be the best ever for her hotel. “We’re really excited, because this July will probably be the best month we’ve ever had in the history of the hotel as the rate and occupancy growth will continue,” she said. “The Maya is a summer hotel. A lot of the other hotels in our market are convention-based hotels, so they slow down a little bit during the summer. But as Long Beach continues to grow as a leisure destination, the summers will be strong.”

 

The Hilton Long Beach, located on Ocean Boulevard in downtown, is also experiencing an increased occupancy rate, according to General Manager Greg Keebler. As with the Maya, this is partially because much of the Hilton was under renovation last year. Upgrades to all guest rooms, meeting spaces and common areas were completed on January 10, Keebler said. Overall, the hotel’s occupancy rate is currently about a percentage point higher than he anticipated it would be so far this year.

 

The Hilton’s renovations, which incorporated “a very timeless modern palette of colors and finishes,” brought the hotel up to par in the Long Beach market, Keebler said. “We spent tens of millions [of dollars] on this renovation,” he noted. As a result, average daily room rates are increasing, he said.

 

Although summer bookings at the Hilton so far are softer than what they would have been last summer had the hotel not been under renovation, Keebler suspected this might be due to changing trends in travel habits. “It is probably a very short-term booking market and booking window right now just due to airline travel being a little bit of a disconnect for some folks,” he said.

 

The Holiday Inn Long Beach Airport Hotel and Conference Center on Lakewood Boulevard and Willow Street was also under extensive renovations last year, with the guest rooms and public spaces in the hotel’s main tower receiving upgrades. The top-floor restaurant is undergoing construction in September to complete the final phase of renovations. “The new restaurant will be called View Bar And Restaurant. It’ll be a mid-century modern themed restaurant, much like the rest of the building,” Robert Smit, vice president of operations for YHB Hospitality Group and manager of the hotel, told the Business Journal.

Robert Smit, vice president of operations for YHB Hospitality Group and manager of the Holiday Inn Long Beach Airport Hotel and Conference Center, shows off the recently renovated interior of the hotel’s main tower, which now includes a café serving Peet’s Coffee. The hotel operation is also planning to add a five-story Staybridge Suites hotel to the property in the near future. (Photograph by the Business Journal’s Larry Duncan)

 

There are also plans to tear down the tower-adjacent two-story guest room building and replace it with a five-story Staybridge Suites hotel. “We should be able to begin demo of that building at the beginning of next year,” Smit said.

 

“We’re looking at double-digit increases in occupancy as well as average [daily room] rate,” Smit said of his projections for the year. “We’re projecting about 80% [occupancy] for the year, which is significantly more than the prior year.” ADR is expected to increase by 20%, he said.

 

Smit said he expects the summer, which is the hotel’s peak season, to be “outstanding,” adding that business might slow down a bit in the fall.

 

“As a hospitality market, Long Beach is really benefited by all of our activities with the CVB and the convention center, and the groups that are choosing Long Beach over other destinations like San Diego and San Francisco and even L.A.,” Smit said. “It’s a very healthy community. . . . And like any healthy community, there are always challenges. Our challenges are always increased labor costs [and other] expenses and trying to control those.”

 

Overall, “Long Beach has a really bright future ahead,” Smit said. “We’re being very competitive in terms of our groups, our meetings and our rates. I think the horizon for this year – and even into next year – is quite good for the hotel environment.”

 

Keebler also attributed steady business to the efforts of the CVB. “In downtown, so much of how the hotels perform is based upon citywide conventions and how they may impact travel and demand,” he said. “We are confident in the CVB and their booking of long-term conventions. We have some exciting new short-term ones like the Longines Masters [Series], which is coming to Long Beach for the very first time in the fall,” he continued. “Long Beach continues to be able to bring events like that that it never really had before. That’s pretty exciting.”

 

Allen said that Long Beach is continuing to grow as a leisure destination, a trend she expects to continue thanks to private investments and those made by the city, like the replacement for the Gerald Desmond Bridge and the project to build a new civic center.

 

“What’s ultimately going to help Long Beach is that we are developing so much and becoming a destination city with tourist attractions, like the new outlet mall at the Pike,” Allen said. “As we explore waterfront development and the Queen Mary development that the task force appointed by the mayor is discussing, all of that stuff really adds to increase our leisure appeal.”

 

Allen observed that investors appear to believe it’s a good time to bet on Long Beach, with two new hotels planned in the city – one at the southeast corner of Ocean Boulevard and Pine Avenue, and one at Douglas Park. Allen reflected, “With more rooms, we’ll be able to compete for some slightly larger citywide [events]. That’s good overall for the hospitality industry in Long Beach.”