San Luis Obispo’s County’s hotel business is on the upswing this year with the latest numbers from SmithTravel Research for October continuing strong. Compared to October 2011, hotel occupancy was up 4.8% to 68% and RevPAR was up 9.6% with 7% more rooms sold.
Bed tax numbers from the City of SLO also show revenues for the month of September 2012 are up by 3.7% from the same month last year and up 6.8% year to date. Currently this report covers 38 establishments representing 2127 rooms, including the addition in May of 84 rooms at the Hampton Inn. The number will increase with the October report due to the opening of the 17 room Hotel Granada.
Not as good news from the SLO airport for October with passenger traffic down 6.9% in October compared to the same month a year ago.For the year – traffic is down 3.8%.
The Conoco Phillips,now Phillips 66 refinery in Arroyo Grande is seeking a permit to increase their crude oil production by 10% increasing the daily limit from 44,500 barrels to 48,950. Last Spring, Conoco Phillips spun off Phillips 66 as a separate business traded on the NYSE under ticker symbol PSX. Phillips owns 11 refineries in the US,3 in Europe and 1 in Asia. The county Planning Commission will take up the request December 13.California oil production has been going down about 2% a year but new techniques promise to access deeper reservoirs of oil in the state.
California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo will receive $94,924 from the California Energy Commission to develop a low-cost Nitrous Oxide (NOx) control method. The project will demonstrate a new and potentially low-cost method for reducing NOx emissions from small scale generators and boilers that use biogas.