Westin Bonaventure towers over local hotel industry; dearth of construction leads to little change in skyline.

Los Angeles County's depressed hotel market has resulted in very little change in the last year in the Business Journal's List of the largest hotels (see pages 20, 22).

With only a few exceptions, The List of the 50 largest properties in the county is unchanged from a year ago. The reason: there hasn't been any hotel construction since late 1992.

And what construction there was in 1992 was on new hotels that were being completed. Not since late 1990 and early 1991 has construction actually begun on any new properties.

Recently, there has been some rumbling in the local hotel industry that developers, and more importantly lenders, have again started looking at the area as a potential site for new properties. If any hotels actually start construction any time soon, it would be a clear sign that the local industry is recovering from a slide that began in late 1989.

Like it did a year ago, the downtown Los Angeles Westin Bonaventure tops The List of the largest properties, with 1,368 rooms. The ranking is based on the number of guest rooms.

The rest of the 10 largest, and the order of the ranking, is unchanged from a year ago. Of the 10 largest hotels in the county, six are considered airport properties because of their proximity to Los Angeles International Airport.

Those airport properties include the Airport Hilton & Towers (No 2 with 1,279 rooms), the Airport Marriott (No. 4), Sheraton Los Angeles Airport (No. 6), Airport Marina (No. 7), Westin Hotel Los Angeles Airport (No. 8) and the Hacienda Hotel (No. 10). The Westin Hotel Los Angeles was formerly the Stouffer Concourse.

The rest of the 10 largest hotels are either in West Los Angeles or in downtown L.A.

Newcomers to The List are the Hotel Inter-Continental in downtown Los Angeles (No. 29), the Long Beach Hilton (No. 31), Doubletree Hotel Marina del Rey (No. 37) and the Red Lion in Glendale (No. 43).

All the newcomers except the Double-tree were opened since the last List of largest hotels was published. The number of rooms at the Doubletree was misreported in last year's List, which meant the hotel did not make the rankings them.

The newcomers replaced the Hotel Sofitel Ma Maison in Los Angeles, the Bayview Plaza Holiday Inn in Santa Monica, the Ritz-Carlton Marina del Rey, and the Hotel Nikko Beverly Hills, which were all pushed off the bottom of The List.

If there is any good news in the data, it is that since a year ago no major hotel has closed. Since the industry began its decline, most hotels in the region have been struggling and some have reportedly been close to bankruptcy.

In the fall of 1992 the region's largest hotel, the Westin Bonaventure, emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The hotel had been in bankruptcy for one year and was reorganized so that it is now owned by its main lender, Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States. Previously, it was owned by a limited partnership called Los Angeles Bonaventure Co.

The reason local hotels are struggling is declining occupancy rates, which only in the last six months have started to show signs of turning upward. In 1987, hotel room occupancy in the county averaged 71.3 percent for the year. In 1989, it was 70 percent and has been steadily declining.

Last year the countywide average was 61 percent but for September 1993, the average was 62.3 percent. Local industry experts predict a countywide average for 1993 of between 62 percent and 63 percent.

Occupancy is a key indicator of the health of a hotel and of the industry as a whole. The industry-accepted break-even point for most hotels is an occupancy rate of between 65 percent and 67 percent.

The local industry has been hurt by a combination of factors -- the recession, aerospace industry cuts and too many hotel rooms added during the 1980s. Other negative factors include the civil unrest in Los Angeles in 1992, which hurt the area's tourism business.