Hotel

Hotel/15″/mike1st/mark2nd By JENNIFER NETHERBY Staff Reporter The opening last fall of the Hyatt Valencia Hotel and Conference Center has put a squeeze on other hotels in the Santa Clarita Valley, forcing them to drop room rates to compete with the new kid on the block. According to PKF Consulting, which tracks the hotel industry, the $80 average room rate for the community of Valencia during April was 3.3 percent below the year-earlier level. That made Valencia the only area in Los Angeles County to suffer a drop in the average room rate. “It happens when a new player comes in town,” said Walter Brindell, general manager of the Hyatt Valencia. “More rooms always spur more competition. They compete with us, we compete with them.” And consumers seem to be responding to the competition. While Valencia’s average room rate fell, the community’s average hotel occupancy rate shot up to 85 percent in April, higher than any other part of Los Angeles County. The county average was 72 percent. And over the prior 12 months, Valencia’s occupancy had been hovering around 75 percent, according to PKF. An especially popular draw has been the Hyatt, the Santa Clarita Valley’s first full-service hotel, which opened in August 1998 on downtown Valencia’s Town Center Drive. Long known as a bedroom community, Santa Clarita and its main community, Valencia, are emerging as a place to stay for business travelers, if not yet a tourist destination. (The community’s sole tourist venue remains Magic Mountain.) But with an onslaught of new hotels opening over the past two years, and growth in the local retail and entertainment market, Santa Clarita is beginning to market itself to business travelers and, to some extent, tourists. Two years ago, PKF Consulting grouped Santa Clarita hotels with those of the San Fernando Valley because the size of Santa Clarita’s hotel market was negligible. Then the Marriott Residence Inn, Hampton Inn and Fairfield Inn opened, and others followed. “Santa Clarita really is becoming a separate market,” said Melissa Mills, a researcher at PKF. “The growth is really more dependent on the business market.” The opening of the Hyatt has found a customer base in out-of-town business people who previously stayed in the San Fernando Valley. Brindell said the number of business visitors has increased month after month at the Hyatt. “Local companies have helped bring in groups from L.A., Southern California, outside California, groups that typically would go to the L.A. market,” he said. “We’re selling the (Santa Clarita) Valley as a destination.” The recent opening of Town Center Drive in downtown Valencia has allowed the Hyatt to really market itself, Brindell said. Next door to the hotel is The Greens, one of only a few putting courses in California. On Town Center Drive, where the hotel is located, a day spa called Natural Beauty and restaurants such as the Salt Creek Grill have opened in the past month. The area also features a Spectrum Sports Club, Valencia Town Center Regional Mall, a 21-screen Edwards Stadium Theatres and Borders Books all within walking distance of the hotel. An Imax theater is slated to open July 1. “When you bring groups in, the space is great, but (in the past we wondered) what do you do with the attendees?” said Brindell. “All of a sudden we can offer them lots to do within walking distance.” The recent downtown openings have also given the Santa Clarita Tourism Bureau a hook to snag some of Southern California’s visiting population. Last year, Santa Clarita tourism officials for the first time attended a conference to market the city’s hotels as destinations. “We had enough to offer now to make it worthwhile,” said April Aston, tourism liaison for the Santa Clarita Chamber of Commerce.