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Tulsa, Okla., Hotels Hope for 2004 Rebound
from Low Occupancy Rates

By Tom Droege, Tulsa World, Okla.
Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News

Jan. 17--Six years ago, when business travel was booming and conventions were commonplace, it was sometimes difficult to find a hotel room in Tulsa.

Nowadays, business travelers and convention planners can take their pick of places to stay and prices to pay.

"It's amazing what companies are pulling off these days," said Kim Carpenter, spokeswoman for the Renaissance Tulsa Hotel & Convention Center, which opened last February in southeast Tulsa.

Suzann Stewart of the Tulsa Metro Chamber Convention and Visitors Bureau said occupancy has fallen to about 52 percent for the 11,800 total hotel rooms in Tulsa. That's down about 3 percent from a year ago.

She attributes the decline to a number of factors, including the stagnant local economy and a continuing fear of air travel stemming from 9/11.

"It's not a very simple industry right now." Stewart said. "There are some cities that have weathered it better than others. We got hit especially hard, primarily because of the airline employment base."

Two of the hardest-hit segments in the travel industry -- domestic business travel volume and international inbound travel to the United States -- will once again see year-over-year declines of about 4 percent in 2003, according to the Travel Industry Association of America.

However, the outlook for both segments is more optimistic for this year and 2005.

"I can see the light at the end of the tunnel," Stewart said. "We've reached the lowest point, and we're coming up."

For the first time since 1999, U.S. residents in 2004 are forecasted to take more than 122 million business trips, an improvement of 4.2 percent from last year. In 2005, business travel will increase 3.5 percent to nearly 127 million trips, the TIAA predicts.

Several large conventions are scheduled in Tulsa this year, but other cities in the region with better convention facilities are attracting crowds that otherwise may have come to Tulsa, Stewart said. The number of conventions in the city began decreasing in 1998, she said.

A convention visitor to Tulsa generally stays in town about 3.3 days and spends around $232 each day on lodging, meals, laundry and other services, Stewart said.

Pete Patel, who manages five hotels in the Tulsa area, said he began seeing occupancies drop when big local employers such as Williams Cos. Inc., WorldCom Inc. and American Airlines began having severe problems.

"They had their vendors and sales people coming to town," he said. "But with the downturn in the economy, the first thing that gets cut is travel."

The condition of the economy may be hard to control, but local improvement projects -- such as those to be funded by the Vision 2025 sales tax passed in September -- will help make Tulsa an attractive place for concerts, conventions and other large gatherings, Patel said.

A similar strategy already is paying dividends at Expo Square, where renovations in recent years were funded by use taxes and a sales tax, he said.

"We paid a little back then, and now we're starting to see the rewards," Patel said.

At the 300-room Renaissance complex, business during the first 10 months of operation "exceeded expectations for the market," said spokeswoman Carpenter.

The hotel, which has 50,000 square feet of flexible meeting space, reported hosting 892 groups so far, ranging from one-day catered meetings to large conventions lasting a week.

Carpenter admitted it was a slow start, but after groups -- especially local ones -- began coming to the Renaissance and spreading the word, business picked up.

"This is a close-knit community," she said, "especially for the high-profile galas."

-----To see more of the Tulsa World, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to www.tulsaworld.com.

(c) 2004, Tulsa World, Okla. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. WMB, WCOEQ, AMR,

 
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