U.S. Hotels Spend $1 Billion in Y2K Prep

WSJUpdated 7:07 AM ET November 23, 1999

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. lodging industry has spent about $1.1 billion preparing hotels for the Year 2000 computer bug, an average of $274 a room preparing elevators, reservation systems and other technology for the changeover, the Wall Street Journal said.

The bulk of the money has already been spent, with just an additional $100 million to go, according to a PricewaterhouseCoopers study to be released this week, the Journal said.

There is a wide variety in hotels' degree of Y2K preparedness, the study said, according to the Journal.

Some of the best-prepared hotels are on Times Square in New York City, and glitches are most likely to occur at small independent hotels, Bjorn Hanson, chairman of PricewaterhouseCoopers's lodging consultancy, told the paper.

In general, franchised or managed hotels appear to be less prepared than those operated by the same company that owns the property and the brand, the Journal said.

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Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), November 23, 1999