Upscale Resorts Report 9/11 Recovery

ORANGE COUNTY, CA-Nearly a year after the terrorist attacks, some resorts in Orange County and the Inland Empire say their group travel bookings are recovering, business in general has improved, and they have fared better than expected after the events of Sept. 11.

These are some of the reports from the Preferred Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Western Regional meeting recently in Hawaii, where operators of Orange County and Inland Empire resorts and hotels were among the speakers who analyzed how their businesses coped with the changes in travel patterns after Sept. 11.

Among them was Blaise Bartell, general manager of Surf & Sand Resort in Laguna Beach, who said that Surf & Sand lost only two pieces of group business as a result of 9/11 and the resort has been running at 93% average occupancy for several consecutive months. Year to date, Bartell says, Surf & Sand Resort’s occupancy is running 8% to 10% higher than the previous year. Bartell says that after Sept. 11, leisure travelers chose resorts they could drive to conveniently and some who normally would have stayed at a local resort only for a weekend instead stayed longer at local resorts.