By Ken Alltucker
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Even as Cincinnati struggled to land lucrative conventions, a report released Friday shows that Greater Cincinnati hotels last year enjoyed a slight increase in occupancy rates.

Downtown attractions that opened in 2003 such as the Great American Ball Park and the Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art reeled in tourists.

Tourism helped boost Greater Cincinnati's hotel occupancy rate to 53.9 percent in 2003, up from 51.7 percent the year before, according to Hendersonville, Tenn.-based Smith Travel Research.

Still, Cincinnati hotels are among the most empty among their competitors. Of 10 large regional cities in Cincinnati's class, only Louisville (53.3 percent) and Charlotte, N.C. (52.2 percent) had a lower average occupancy rate than Cincinnati, Smith Travel figures show. Minneapolis had the highest rate (60.5 percent), slightly above the U.S. average (59.2 percent).

And many are predicting a difficult 2004 for Cincinnati's hospitality industry, which employs about 80,000 and accounts for more than $2 billion in economic activity.

Figures provided by the Greater Cincinnati Convention and Visitors Bureau show hotel bookings from conventions are projected to drop from 124,857 in 2003 to 112,925 this year and to 64,054 in 2005. The bureau continues to try to sign up conventions, but it will be tough to accommodate groups in the next two years while the downtown center is under expansion.

"It will be very dry," Rob Gauthier, general manager of the Millennium Hotel complex on Fifth Street said. "We're forecasting a 4.5 or 5 percent decline in occupancy this year."

Smith Travel reported that downtown-area hotels posted a 53.5 percent occupancy rate. Hotels in Cincinnati's northern suburbs had the lowest average occupancy rate (51.4 percent), and Northern Kentucky properties had the highest rate (54.2 percent).

The Smith Travel survey showed that the Cincinnati area's hotel room inventory increased to 23,909 rooms from 23,773 the previous year. New hotels include the 73-room Residential Suites in Sharonville and the 78-room Ramada in Sparta.

Shirley Bonekemper, executive director of Warren County Convention and Visitors Bureau, said Mason-area hotels don't get the same amount of corporate bookings that downtown hotels enjoy year-round. So while hotels near Paramount's Kings Island post occupancy rates as high as 80 to 90 percent during summer months, occupancy plummets in the winter.

E-mail kalltucker@enquirer.com