Visitors Head South to Fill San Diego’s Inns As Other Regions Lag

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Visitors Head South to Fill San Diego’s Inns As Other Regions Lag

By CONNIE LEWIS

San Diego Business Journal

No wonder the southbound lanes of the San Diego Freeway are so jammed these days.

Hotel occupancy in San Diego stood at a whopping 93.8 percent for the week ended Aug. 2, according to Smith Travel Research, marking the fourth week in a row California’s southernmost city has led the nation.

Smith Travel also reported that San Diego was the only tourism market among the Top 25 to post occupancy higher than 90 percent.

Anaheim (which includes Disneyland) was second with 89.3 percent. Seattle, New York and Norfolk, Va., followed with rates of about 82 percent. Cities with rates in the high 70 percent range included Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Honolulu, Minneapolis/St. Paul and Los Angeles. Orlando, Fla., had 72.6 percent.

“The war in Iraq is over, the threat of SARS has passed and people want to travel. They want to go on vacation,” said Reint Reinders, chief executive of the San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau. “But they’ll travel by car and we’re well positioned to attract the drive market.”

San Diego’s average daily room rate for the week ended Aug. 2 was $117.58, up 1.9 percent from the like period last year, and the second highest among the country’s top markets after New York. Honolulu ranked third with a rate of $116.40, San Francisco fourth with $115.50 and Boston fifth with $112.03.

Tourism officials in San Diego County had projected pent-up demand would result in an upswing in summer business.

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