Radisson's game is to spread its name across Southland's hotels.

Radisson Hotels International has become a dominant player in the small- to medium-sized hotel market in Los Angeles County, adding six new franchises in the past year.

Radisson, part of the Minneapolis-based Carlson Companies Inc., now has franchise agreements with 11 hotels in the county, propelling it from a minor player to one of the three biggest in the local market. The latest property to join the Radisson network is a 281-room hotel in Agoura Hills that until May operated under the Ramada Inn name.

Out of close to 90,000 hotel rooms in the county, the Radisson name now appears on more than 2,800 -- the third largest cadre of any hotel company in the area behind Holiday Inn and Hilton. Holiday Inn has more than 4,000 rooms, and Hilton has at least 3,100 rooms.

Radisson currently has slightly more rooms in the county than do hotels that operate under the Marriott or Westin names, and it has significantly more rooms in the county than do such other name-brand hotel companies as Sheraton and Hyatt, which have 2,200 and 1,600 rooms respectively.

All of the local properties that operate under the Radisson banner have franchise agreements with the company. In return for a fee, that generally ranges from 2 to 5 percent of the property's gross revenues plus a set booking fee, the hotel is hooked into Radisson's worldwide reservations system. The hotel uses the Radisson name but ownership and management of the property is unaffected by the franchise agreement.

"Radisson has been after this market for a long time and, with the market being so distressed, it has been a lot easier for them to get some conversions," said Bruce Baltin, a partner and a hotel industry analyst for PKF Consulting in Los Angeles.

A conversion is when a hotel switches names and possibly ownership, management or franchise arrangements as well. When a hotel changes affiliations, it usually means the property is struggling or the new company is offering an attractive conversion package.

Saul Leonard, president of his own hotel and a gaming industry consulting firm in Century City, noted that Radisson has been on a major expansion program for at least the past year. "They have been coming on pretty strong but their problem, as I see it, has been a lack of any strong identity," he said. "Their hotels are all over the lot. It's hard to point to anything that sets them apart from everybody else."

Radisson officials said 337 hotels in 33 countries are part of its chain of properties that operate under management or franchise agreements. There are 31 hotels operating under the Radisson name in California.

In Los Angeles County, the most recognizable property to join the Radisson network is probably the Hollywood Roosevelt in Hollywood, which became a Radisson in March.

The landmark 335-room hotel, which has a rich entertainment-industry history, was formerly an independent property. Though it is now known as the Radisson Hollywood Roosevelt, the hotel is still owned and managed by Maruko Inc., a Japanese company that is operating under bankruptcy protection.

Other Radisson hotels in the county range from a small boutique hotel on Wilshire Boulevard near Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills to a 300-room freeway-adjacent property in the heavily commercial and industrial area of the City of Commerce. There are no Radisson hotels in downtown Los Angeles, an area of the county where the industry has been in a deep slump for more than three years.

Manfred Gerling, vice president of West Coast development for Radisson, said the company has no plans to move into downtown Los Angeles but is looking in the Pasadena area for a franchise operation.

But, he said, it is unlikely Radisson will be adding a significant number of additional properties in the county. He said most the expansion into the area is now complete.

Managers of local hotels that have joined the Radisson network said the primary reason for converting was to become a part of the company's reservations system.

"We were an independent property and we needed to be part of a worldwide reservations system," said Pat Duncan, general manager of the Radisson Beverly Pavilion Hotel in Beverly Hills.

But the owner of another local Radisson hotel, who did not want to be named, said he was disappointed with the affiliation.

"It seems they have expanded too fast. Here in Los Angeles, there are now so many Radissons that we're competing against each other and the reservations agents back in Minneapolis really don't know the market," said the owner. "Radisson has been promising the world to hotel owners but I don't think they have delivered."

In addition to Los Angeles County, Radisson has been expanding elsewhere in the Southland. In the past 18 months, hotels in San Diego, Encinitas, Irvine, Fullerton, Anaheim, Santa Ana, San Bernardino and Oxnard have joined the Radisson network.

Carlson Cos., the parent of Radisson, is a private company that last year had almost $10 billion in revenue from its major businesses, which include hotels, restaurants and travel agencies.