Like a Phoenix, hotel industry rises above October wildfires: room, occupancy rates increase, at least for now.

As investigators scramble to put a dollar figure on the damage wrought by wildfires that broke out in the county during the week of Oct. 21, analysts are also busy assessing the loss to businesses and the local economy.

Estimates vary, but speculation has it that tourism, which generates nearly $8 billion in direct annual spending and is the county's third largest industry behind manufacturing and defense, may be among the hardest hit if would-be visitors hold onto the scorched earth image projected in the media before the last fire was quelled early this month.

For now at least, local inns are experiencing a boon in business. Occupancy rates stood at 72.6 percent for the week ended Nov. 3, putting San Diego in fourth place behind New York City, Los Angeles and San Francisco, in that order, according to Smith Travel Research. Las Vegas does not participate in the Tennessee-based researcher's nationwide surveys.

For the week ended Nov. 10, the most recent report available from Smith Travel, occupancy at the county's hotels increased to 86.4 percent, resulting in a second-place ranking behind New York City.

It was a confluence of events, sources say.

While there was no count taken of the number of individuals and families who took shelter in local hotels, it was reported that more than 250,000 people fled their homes, and some who have not found more permanent quarters, such as apartments, after the destruction of their homes, are still staying in hotels.

More than 1,300 homes were destroyed by the wildfires, according to the San Diego Institute for Policy Research, a private, nonprofit research agency.

Visitors Fill Up Rooms

Meanwhile, there has also been an influx of insurance adjusters, relief workers from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the American Red Cross, says Sal Giametta, spokesman for the San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau.

Among those directly involved in the fires were out-of-town fire crews and battalion chiefs who stayed in local hotels through the week ending Nov. 3, says Bob Rauch, chairman of the San Diego County Hotel-Motel Association and a co-owner of two North County hotels.

Rauch says that he has also seen the return of the individual corporate traveler, who'd stayed away during the height of the firestorm.

The Veterans Day weekend apparently drew visitors from Los Angeles because there was bumper-to-bumper traffic on northbound Interstate 5 on the evening of Nov. 12.

Conventioneers Flock To Hotels

But one of the biggest tourism generators in recent weeks has been the San Diego Convention Center.

According to Steve Johnson, vice president of public affairs for the San Diego Convention Center Corp., which operates and sells space in the 2.6 million-square-foot waterfront facility, three medical conventions resulted in what is called a "compression" of business, meaning that guests fanned out to fill hotels throughout downtown.

Between Oct. 24 and 26, 6,000 conventioneers attended a meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics, resulting in 17,430 nightly room rentals.

From Nov. 3-7, the Society for Neuroscience drew an attendance of 32,000, resulting in 52,900 nightly room rentals, while the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists, which had an attendance of 7,500 from Nov. 13-15, resulted in 14,016 nightly room rentals, according to Johnson.

The outlook for bookings at the Convention Center is good. Attendance totaled 983,706 during the last fiscal year and is expected to reach 1.1 million by the end of the current fiscal year.

As Rauch points out, business and small-group travel slows down just before Thanksgiving and stays down until mid-January, and wintertime, as far as leisure travel is concerned, is the county's off-season. The peak travel season runs from June through the end of August.

In a 2008 marketing plan, ConVis reported that daily hotel room rates averaged $134.63 in fiscal 2007, and are expected to climb by 5 percent to $141.36 in fiscal 2008.

Only time will tell. For now, anyway, the local lodging industry is alive and well. The average daily room rate during the week ending Nov. 10, according to Smith Travel, was $142.68, up 8.1 percent compared with the same year-ago week.