Hurricane Katrina may be blamed for rising gas prices, squeezing airlines' bottom lines and agriculture shipping delays, but it has been a boon for one industry: the nation's hotel sector.

The lodging industry's leading research firm on Thursday raised revenue growth estimates for the year by more than a half-percent as a result of Katrina, adding to what already was expected to be the sector's best year since 2000 when the industry profited $22.5 billion on $113.7 billion revenue.

Tennessee-based Smith Travel Research raised its 2005 revenue per-available-room growth estimate to 8.2% from 7.6%, citing demand from emergency workers and evacuees forced from their homes by Katrina.

"We expect total industry profit to near the 2000 numbers," said Jan Freitag, a director of Smith Travel Research. "In terms of total revenue that the industry will generate, we certainly will have the best year that we've ever seen."

It was too early to guess what further effect Hurricane Rita would bear on the hotel industry in Texas and Louisiana, Freitag said. Hundreds of hotel rooms will be closed for the next several days as hoteliers, along with the general population, evacuate cities like Galveston and Houston.

But hotels in nearby cities like Dallas, which has 82,000 rooms in the metro area, have been almost 100% full since Katrina tore through the Gulf Coast.

(Source: www.ehotelier.com)