Hotels key on meeting facilities amid tourism slump: Century Plaza holds top spot in total meetings space.

With room occupancy at one of its lowest points ever, hotels in Los Angeles County are looking at meeting facilities as an important, alternate source of revenue.

As reflected in this week's List of the county's 25 hotels with the greatest amount of meeting space, a significant portion of the Southland's top properties are dedicated to hosting meetings and conventions.

"Our meeting space, and that of a lot of hotels, has helped us weather some hard economic times," said Teri Danahey, director of sales at the Westin Hotel at Los Angeles International Airport. The hotel is No. 9 on The List.

The criteria for ranking the hotels has been changed from October 1992 when the Business Journal last ranked hotel meeting facilities.

Previously, hotels were ranked by the size of the single biggest meeting, banquet or convention room. In this week's List, hotels are ranked by total meeting space at the property.

Even with the change, however, most of the top 10 properties with meeting space remain the same, albeit in a different order.

According to The List, the Century Plaza Hotel & Towers in Century City has more meeting space -- 100,000 square feet -- than any other hotel in Los Angeles County. Others in the top five, in order of ranking, are the Los Angeles Airport Hilton & Towers, the Westin Bonaventure in downtown Los Angeles, the Baltimore, also downtown, and the Sheraton Los Angeles Airport.

Under the old ranking system, the Los Angeles Airport Hilton had the top spot with a 30,000-square-foot meeting room.

The total hotel meeting space in the county has not changed significantly over the last two years because there has been very little hotel construction.

But total convention space in the county will be changing significantly in eight months when the expansion of the Los Angeles Convention Center near downtown is scheduled to be completed. The new facility will have 810,000 square feet of convention and meeting space.

However, the opening of the convention center is not expected to affect the meetings business at most hotels because only big, national groups will probably be booking the new facility.

During the current economic downturn in Los Angeles County, hotel operators say, meetings business can account for up to 50 percent of a property's revenues.

The meetings business, hotel operators say, can produce revenues from three sources -- space rental, food and beverage, and guest rooms.

"Hotel managers are looking to maximize the use of meeting space because with it can come guest rooms and meal service," said Don Henderson, general manager of the Hyatt Regency in downtown Los Angeles. The Hyatt Regency is No. 18 on The List with 24,000 square feet of meeting space.

With pressure to make up for lost guest-room revenue -- which declined by $53 million at Los Angeles County hotels last year -- booking groups into meeting space has become highly competitive, operators say.

"There is a lot of room for negotiations when it comes to booking groups," said Michael Clayton, director of food and beverage service at the Burbank Hilton Hotel.

"Groups and associations are doing a lot of shopping around and demanding more," he said.

Rates for meeting rooms can range from $200 to several thousands of dollars, depending on the size of the room and what is included in the package.