Hotel business up slightly in Westchester

Slow growth in the Westchester hotel business mirrors a nationwide trend in the past 12 months, but next year growth may strengthen, according to a national association.

Joe Santoro, general manager, the. Dolce Tarrytown House in Tarrytown, an executive conference center and hotel, said business

Nationally, the hotel industry started to see a "slow and steady improvement" in the third quarter of 2003, said Jessica Maccaro, a communications and marketing manager for the American Hotel and Lodging Association in Washington, D.C.

"We're not looking at it as a boom by any means," Maccaro said. For this year, her organization is predicting a 3 percent increase in the average daily rate for rooms and occupancy rates from the current level of about 80 percent.

"We're seeing it as a gradual, sustained improvement," she said.

That slow and steady improvement is expected to continue until 2005, when the expansion would be more robust, Maccaro said. Next year, she said, consumer spending should reach the record level of 2000, when the industry hit a record $594 billion in revenues.

Commercial customers have been doing a bit more business at Santoro's hotel than last year, he said, and the weekend tourist trade and "social-catering markets" grew better still.

Santoro said businesses seem to be very cautious about attending conferences in the future, with more interest in the near future rather than many months down the line.

"Everybody's looking at their budgets," he said. "But when they get here, they're spending money, buying drinks and so on. They're definitely doing things they wouldn't do when they were cutting their budgets."

Kele Agi, general manager of the Residence Inn by Marriott in New Rochelle, has also seen a wait-and-see attitude, which he attributes to business people concerned about the outcome of the upcoming presidential election.

Comparing the first seven months of this year with the same period of 2003, Agi

said business is up about 3 percent at his hotel. Occupancy rates have been generally in the "upper 80s," he said.

Cyd Klein, inn keeper at Alexander Hamilton House, said business improved slightly at his hotel. "It's been pretty good, 75-80 percent occupancy currently, last year pretty similar, maybe a little lower."

More people are driving on vacations and fewer have been flying, he said. "People driving limits our market and changes the way we have to market our business. You can choose to market the business in places where drivers will see your brochures rather than international airports."