Driving Getaways Help Hotel Market

ORANGE COUNTY, CA-Occupancy at Orange County hotels remains down from its peak in 2000, but the county’s hotel market performed better for the first eight months of this year than it did in 2001, according to a new Grubb & Ellis report.

The report shows occupancy at county hotels climbed nearly two percentage points to 69.06% from January through August, compared with 67.28% at the end of 2001 and 72.77% in 2000, the peak year for occupancy.

The figures for Orange County and other Southern California hotel markets are promising “in spite of the doom and gloom that has regularly been reported” about the industry, says the report by Jordan Richman, a Grubb & Ellis senior vice president.