Robert Rauch, president of San Diego consulting firm R.A. Rauch & Associates, said the local hospitality industry was cutting jobs in 2009, then moved into a phase in 2010 where it didn’t do a lot of replacements when job vacancies occurred. “We didn’t do much new hiring at all in 2010,” said Rauch, whose company owns two Hilton-branded Carmel Valley hotels and also manages two local properties. The local industry began filling vacancies in 2011, and is now in a job growth phase. Rauch said the four local hotels he oversees will likely add around six workers for the coming summer season, but the competitive climate has forced hoteliers to move well beyond hiring for positions like housekeeping, food service and registration. He said many of today’s openings call for tech-savvy workers who know about mobile technology, social media and multichannel marketing. “These jobs are increasingly sophisticated and require certain technical knowledge,” Rauch said.

Read more…

…”San Diego hotel consultant and developer Robert Rauch, who had been upbeat about recent improvements in occupancy and RevPAR, said he would feel better if the numbers had been stronger in January and February.

“We don’t like to use one or two months to determine a trend, but we haven’t seen any improvement in rate yet,” Rauch said.

However, Rauch emphasized that a couple of large events can mean a complete turnaround on the numbers.

As for whether he is projecting a RevPAR increase of 5.8 percent this year to match PKF’s forecast, Rauch said he didn’t think the number would be that high here.

“About a 5 percent increase is what I’d expect,” Rauch said.”

“Rauch projects San Diego County’s hotel occupancy, which he said ended last year at 68.9 percent, will climb to slightly more than 70 percent by the end of 2012.”

“Rauch said the average daily rate in San Diego County, which he reported closed out last year at $124, should be at about $130 by the end of this year.”

READ MORE…

“San Diego hotel owner Bob Rauch said he’d be open to offering a gas card-type promotion if prices reach $5 a gallon. While he recently raised room rates by 5 percent at his Hilton Garden Inn and Homewood Suites by Hilton, it was planned before the run-up in gas prices.”
Read More…

Robert A. Rauch serves as president of R. A. Rauch & Associates Inc., the firm that manages the Homewood Suites by Hilton, Hilton Garden Inn in Del Mar, and others. Rauch has a B.A. in hotel administration from Western International University and a M.S. in tourism administration from Arizona State University. He has served as chair or president of several tourism organizations. Rauch teaches at Arizona State University, publishes Hospitality Innsights at hotelguru.com and is a certified hotel administrator.  Read More…

Here are the highlights, as covered by major local and industry publications:

San Diego Daily Transcript  

“Hotel property prices rising, but financing is scarce”  (February 10, 2012)

The state of the hotel market was the topic during a HotelGuru.com-sponsored event hosted by Robert Rauch at his Hilton Garden Inn on Thursday.

Rauch said while the hotel industry has been through a great deal, he is looking at 2012 as if it were 2004 — right before it experienced some of its best years ever.

San Diego U-T

“Good times” for hotels in 2012, experts say (February 10, 2012)

By most accounts, 2011 brought long-awaited financial gains for hotels battered by the recession, and it’s likely 2012 will deliver more of the same. But don’t count on much in the way of new hotel development anytime soon, said a panel of industry experts meeting this week in San Diego.

Across the board, revenues, daily rates and hotel occupancies are up in San Diego County, although the growth continues to lag other California counties, and the performance has yet to match levels seen before the economic downturn.

 “This is a good time to be in the hotel business,” said Alan Reay, founder of Atlas Hospitality Group, a brokerage firm that also tracks the California hotel market. Reay was among a group of panelists speaking at a forum dubbed “Let the Good Times Begin.” Last Thursday’s forum was organized by San Diego hotel owner and consultant Robert Rauch.

Hotel News Now

Panel: SoCal Back to Pre-recession Metrics (February 14, 2012)

Hotel markets in southern and coastal California are hopping and as buyers who have been sitting on the sidelines begin to jump back in, the window of opportunity on attractive deals is starting to close, according to a panel of experts last week.

“We’re in the second inning of the recovery,” said Gary London, a San Diego real-estate economist and president of The London Group Realty Advisors. “We have a long way to go,” but the worst appears to be over, London said, pointing to strong gains in occupancy, revenue and transaction pricing in California’s coastal markets in 2011. Lenders remain cautious, however, making this primarily a cash market.

London and three other hotel real-estate experts offered forecasts and advice to an audience of investors and hotel operators from around the San Diego region at a panel called “Let the Good Times Begin.” Robert Rauch, president of R.A. Rauch & Associates, a San Diego-based hospitality management company, hosted and moderated the event in Del Mar.

Hotel developer and consultant Robert Rauch agrees there should be fewer hotels heading toward foreclosure this year.

“I don’t think we will see more foreclosures I think there will likely be more technical defaults,” Rauch said also suggesting that extensions and workouts may give hotel owners more time than they have had in a while.

Read more…

…”For the next five years, I foresee good times ahead after three horrendous years for our industry,” said Rauch.

According to Rauch’s hospitality firm R.A. Rauch & Associates, tourism in San Diego County in 2012 is expected to rake in $10 million in new tax revenue, create 1,000 new jobs and have 450,000 more hotel rooms occupied across the county….

Read more…

Robert Rauch, president of hospitality consulting firm R.A. Rauch & Associates Inc. in San Diego, foresees more deals in the $5 million to $25 million range in 2012, mostly by single investors and small investment firms.

Experts note that loan distress will play a diminishing role in the hotel marketplace, thanks to an improving economic climate and rising property values. Owners with otherwise good payment histories will see flexibility among lenders, willing to adjust terms or extend loan maturities if owners can come up with more equity to refinance.

“The lenders aren’t going to be in a hurry to foreclose,” Rauch said. “They don’t want to be in the hotel operating business.”

Read more:  http://sdbj.com/news/2012/jan/02/tourism-industry-looks-build-recession-recovery-ga/

Hotel business has not returned to pre-recession levels, but experts say the segment registered year-over-year improvement in 2010 and 2011, and the general trend should carry forward in 2012.

“It’s not explosive growth, but it’s very positive,” said Robert Rauch, president of local hospitality consulting firm R. A. Rauch & Associates Inc., who also operates two Hilton-branded hotels in Carmel Valley.

San Diego County hotels were on track to finish 2011 with an overall occupancy rate around 69 percent. Rauch said it will likely be 2013 or 2014 before the region sees a return to the 73 percent occupancy rates seen in the peak 2007-08 period.

However, he said the region in the past year saw revenue per available room rise about 8 percent and room rates increase about 5 percent, both keeping ahead of inflation.

Read more:

And local hospitality veteran Bob Rauch said he and nearly all of his peers have been very busy this December.

“There’s a bunch of pretty happy people going into 2012,” said Rauch, who operates a Homewood Suites and a Hilton Garden Inn in Carmel Valley.

“We are having a record December, and it’s all leisure business,” said Rauch, president of R.A. Rauch & Associates Inc. This week, he said, the hotels “have been running at nearly 100 percent capacity.”

While business can be brisk this time of year, Rauch said he’s never seen the hotels this full. Most of the travelers at his hotels arrived by air, for the first time including many international travelers, from China, Europe and Canada.

Rauch, who sits on the marketing committee of the San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau, said he heard similarly optimistic accounts from his colleagues there in a committee meeting last week. Nearly across the board, the industry said visitor numbers had increased from last year.

“We all talked about how things were going, and everybody was up … hotels, restaurants and attractions were all up” more than 5 percent, Rauch said. There were some exceptions, namely a few museums that were flat or a bit down, but the overall outlook was positive.

Looking ahead, Rauch said he’s forecasting “a very strong tourism year in 2012.” Rauch will be delivering his forecast on Feb. 9 at the Hilton Garden Inn.  He described the trends in a November report titled, “Let the Good Times Begin,” which is also the title of his February presentation.

“The ‘Great Recession’ followed by the ‘Great Hangover’ has ended,” Rauch wrote in his report, which sees strong growth nationwide, not just in San Diego County. And for hotel owners, that means an increase in property values as average revenues per room, a key industry statistic, go up.

“Going forward, I believe we can look at double-digit per annum growth in values over the next four years,” Rauch wrote. “That means that a hotel that is currently valued at $150,000 per room will be worth over $220,000 by 2015. Why? Because average rate, by and large, drops to the bottom line and that is where much of the growth will come from.”

Read more: http://www.nctimes.com/business/tourism-hospitality-industry-poised-to-roar-into/article_e2fa979e-f06e-5361-8ebe-e29441d98180.html#ixzz1iXSvS5i5