BEVERLY HILLS, CA— Hilton Hotels Corp. provided an update on current business trends, noting that despite a drop in occupancy immediately following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, in the past few weeks such indicators as hotel occupancy and average daily rate (ADR) have been trending up and are approaching the levels seen in 1999. Additionally, the company noted that the pace of reservations has been accelerating since mid-September and that the rate of cancellations has significantly decreased during that time. “We are encouraged by the fact that recent occupancy and average rate trends are validating our theory of a recovery that will get us back to the business levels we experienced in the late 1990s, said Stephen F. Bollenbach, president and chief executive officer of Hilton Hotels Corp. “It is worth noting that while the occupancies at our owned full-service hotels, primarily in big cities— those dependent on fly-in traffic— are recovering rapidly from the lows of mid-September, our properties located primarily in suburban and smaller markets more focused on drive-in business have been seeing consistently good occupancy levels. “Clearly, we have challenges ahead. We are continuing to watch our costs and operate our business efficiently and in line with our theory of managing for recovery. While we are prepared to face the challenges that remain, the trends weve seen are positive indicators not only for our hotels, but for the travel industry in general. For the month of September 2001, occupancy at the comparable owned hotels ran approximately 20-25 percentage points below September 2000. At the franchised hotels, occupancy for September 2001 ran approximately 10 points below September 2000, said the company. Reservations booked through Hilton Reservations Worldwide, the Global Distribution Systems and the Internet, were approximately 25% below last years levels during the first week following the attacks. Since that time, reservation bookings have improved each week, and last week were approximately 12% below last year, noted Hilton executives. Of the roughly 2,600 group cancellations seen by the company, 76% were for the month of September 2001, and 17% for the month of October. The company noted that the number of cancellations has decreased every week since the attacks. Approximately 40% of the cancellations have rebooked for later dates, said Hilton executives. Individual cancellations, more than 100% above normal in the first week following the attack, returned to normal levels by Sept. 25.
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