Improved isle
operations help
lift Hilton net

By Russ Lynch
Star-Bulletin

Strong business at the Hilton Waikoloa Village on the Big Island and an apparent end to declines at the Hilton Hawaiian Village helped Hilton Hotels Corp. earnings improve in the third quarter.

The company today reported a profit from continuing operations of $42 million for the three months through Sept. 30, up 2.4 percent from $41 million in the year-earlier quarter.

Newly acquired hotels and strong business in its properties in Washington D.C., San Francisco, San Diego, Short Hills, N.J., and the Big Island helped, the company said.

"The property on the Big Island had a very strong quarter," said Marc Grossman, a spokesman at Hilton corporate headquarters in Beverly Hills, Calif.

"The Hawaiian Village for the third quarter was essentially flat, but that represents an improvement over what we had been seeing this year," he said.

Year 2000 bookings for the Waikiki complex are strong. "The Hilton Hawaiian Village will be a 2000 story," he said.

Meanwhile, Grossman said, full-year results in Hawaii are expected to be down from last year.

In addition to the 2,542-room Village, owned by Hilton, and the part-owned 1,241-room Waikoloa Village, Hilton operates the 485-room Hilton Turtle Bay Resort on Oahu for investor owners. In August, construction began on a new 403-room tower at the Hawaiian Village.

The company said per-share earnings of 17 cents in the latest quarter, not counting new-hotel preopening expenses, were up 13 percent from 15 cents in the year-earlier quarter. Hilton's third-quarter revenues were up 11 percent at $498 million in the latest period compared with $450 million in the year-earlier quarter.