Westin Bonaventure still tops hotel ranks; but it's in bankruptcy and new hotels are being stalled.

The largest hotel in Los Angeles County, in terms of guest rooms, is still the Westin Bonaventure in downtown Los Angeles. And the 10 biggest hotels are unchanged from a year ago on this week's Business Journal List of the 50 largest hotel properties in the county.

But therein lies the story of the county's hotel industry since the last List of hotels was published in May 1990: In the interim, the Westin Bonaventure has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and most major hotel construction in the county has come to a screeching halt.

There are changes on The List, however, after the big 10. One property, the Airport Park Hotel in Inglewood (No. 37 in the 1990 ranking), recently closed down while operating under the name Park Plaza. At least four hotels changed management -- and their names -- since the last List. One hotel -- the Mayfair Hotel -- did not make The List because it reported fewer rooms than it did in 1990, and three new hotels joined the ranking.

The new properties that opened since the last List are No. 17, the Ramada Renaissance in the area of Los Angeles International Airport (505 rooms); the Ritz-Carlton Huntington Hotel in Pasadena, a property with 383 rooms in 32nd place, and the Nikko in Beverly Hills, which opened last month and is the 50th largest facility with just over 300 rooms.

But overall, there has been very little growth in the number of hotels that have been completed or started construction during the past 18 months. According to one industry report, the number of available hotel rooms in the county is expected to rise from 86,452 at the beginning of 1991 to 88,645 on Jan. 1, 1992, a 2.3 percent increase. Between January 1986 and January 1991, the average annual rate of growth in the number of hotel rooms was almost 5 percent.

Right now there are four hotels under construction in the county but probably four times that many are planned, and most of those have been in the planning stages for the past 18 months. The conventional wisdom is that one out of four of the proposed hotels will actually start construction within the next 18 months, so it's unlikely the next List of hotels will change much from the current ranking.

In the important downtown market, only one hotel is currently under construction, the 470-room Intercontinental on Olive Street between GTK Way and Fourth Street.

Most industry experts predict that in the coming months other hotels in the county will face the same problems as the Bonaventure, which filed for bankruptcy when faced with foreclosure.

Susan Thompson, a spokeswoman for the property, said the Bonaventure continues to operate as usual and there have been surprisingly few cancellations by either individuals or groups. "We are doing exceedingly well," she said.

The hotel is expected to present its reorganization plan to the bankruptcy court on Feb. 18.