NEW YORK— U.S.-traded shares of Canadian luxury hotelier Four Seasons Hotels dropped more than 7% Oct. 14, and analysts expressed concern about the companys exposure to a slowdown in travel to bomb-hit Indonesia and other hot spots, according to a Reuters report. Four Seasons manages three properties in Indonesia, including two on Bali, the resort island where a car-bomb destroyed a disco Oct. 12, killing more than 180 people. The U.S. State Department has issued an advisory urging Americans to leave the island and postpone any future travel there. “Four Seasons is going to have the biggest global exposure (in the high-end lodging sector) relative to its size,” said Bryan Maher, an analyst with Credit Lyonnais Securities, noted the Reuters report. Shares of Toronto-based Four Seasons were down $2.35, or about 7 percent, at $30.75 in late-morning trading Oct. 14 on the New York Stock Exchange. The Toronto Stock Exchange was closed on Monday for the Canadian Thanksgiving holiday. According to the report, Maher indicated any impact on Four Seasons from the bombings will be minimal since the company manages but does not own the Bali hotels. A slowdown in business will hurt the incentive management fees— a portion of the hotels profits— that the company earns, but base management fees, the primary source of income for Four Seasons, will not be affected, it said. “At the end of the day, its the owners who have the most exposure,” Maher said, according to Reuters. Joseph Greff, an analyst with Fulcrum Global Partners, said the attack may have made investors nervous about Four Seasons plans to expand in some other troubled areas of the globe, especially as the world prepares for a possible war between Iraq and the United States, according to Reuters. “They have several properties in the Middle East and several projects in the development pipeline that are also in the Middle East,” Greff said in the report. Four Seasons is expected to open resorts in Jordan and Saudi Arabia next year, according to the company. Steven Kent, an analyst with Goldman Sachs, said the net impact of the weekend bombing on Four Seasons “should be relatively modest,” in part because the Bali resorts were already suffering from weak business following the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, according to Reuters. “These are two relatively small hotels that werent contributing very significantly to earnings even before this,” he reportedly said. SOURCE: Reuters