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Isle lodging helps
ResortQuest cut losses

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By Russ Lynch
Star-Bulletin

A strong increase in its Hawaii hotel and vacation condominium business helped ResortQuest International Inc. cut its fourth-quarter loss by 58 percent and show a 118 percent rise in its full-year profit, the company said today.

The company's stock rose 58 cents today to close at $7.58 a share on the New York Stock Exchange.

ResortQuest, owner of Aston Hotels & Resorts in Hawaii and vacation businesses in more than 40 other locations, reported a loss of $2.48 million, or 6 cents a share, for the three months through Dec. 31, compared with a loss of $5.97 million, or 25 cents a share, after one-time charges, in the year-earlier period.

Since many of its mainland operations are in summer resorts, it is not unusual for Memphis, Tenn.-based ResortQuest to report winter losses.

Fourth-quarter revenues of $25.6 million were up 10.3 percent from $23.2 million in the 1999 quarter.

Lodging revenues, the total amount passing through the cash registers before paying a share to the owners of the properties ResortQuest manages, were up 12.7 percent at $60.3 million compared with a year-earlier $53.5 million.

ResortQuest gets anywhere from 3 percent to 40 percent of the total lodging revenues after paying the owners.

Hawaii lodging revenues, mostly from Aston but including a smaller vacation rental company on Maui, were $37.7 million in the latest quarter, up 18.2 percent from $31.9 million in the 1999 quarter.

ResortQuest said that fourth-quarter occupancy in the Hawaii properties was 77.9 percent, up 5.3 points from a year-earlier 72.6 percent.

For all of 2000, ResortQuest said it had a record profit of $9.6 million, or 51 cents a share, compared with a profit of $4.4 million, or 24 cents a share, in the year-earlier quarter. Full-year revenues of $152 million were up 18.8 percent from $127.9 million in 1999.

Lodging revenues of $335.9 million in 2000 were up 10.4 percent from $304.2 million in 1999.

Hawaii lodging revenues of $155.5 million last year were up 13.7 percent from $136.8 million in the previous year.

The full-year occupancy average in Hawaii was 79.3 percent, up 3.3 points from 76 percent in 1999, the company said.