TORONTO (Reuters) ? Fairmont Hotels and Resorts Inc. reported a fourth-quarter loss yesterday, hurt by the slump in travel created by last year?s SARS outbreak and by hurricane damage at its Bermuda hotels, but revenue rose as luxury-hotel demand increased slightly.

Chief executive William Fatt said booking levels for business travellers in January are higher than year-ago levels and leisure-travel is also encouraging, pointing toward a widely anticipated recovery.

Fairmont, which operates more than 80 hotels in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Bermuda, Barbados and the United Arab Emirates, said it lost $13.5 million, or 17 cents a share, for the quarter ended December 31, compared with a profit of $11 million, or 14 cents a share, in the year-before period.

Operating revenue at Fairmont, a barometer of the health of the luxury-travel sector, climbed 9.2 percent to $137.1 million from $125.6 million, primarily because of the acquisition of Fairmont Copley Plaza Boston and the Fairmont Orchid, Hawaii. Revenue per available room a measure of profitability for hotel companies rose 8.8 percent at hotels owned by Fairmont. At the hotels it manages, revenue per available room rose 5 percent.

Occupancy levels fell 1.3 percent at both its owned and managed hotels.

During the quarter, Fairmont recorded a charge of $1.6 million for repairs at its hotels in Bermuda, which were damaged by a hurricane last year. The company?s investment in Legacy Real Estate Investment Trust, increased pension expenses and unrecoverable marketing costs also contributed to the loss in the quarter. Fairmont and fellow Canadian luxury-hotel operator Four Seasons have suffered since the September 11 attacks. Since the attacks, a tepid global economy, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the spread of the deadly severe acute respiratory syndrome have created tough conditions for hotel and travel firms.

Fatt said that in addition to the widely anticipated economic rebound, a substantial recovery from SARS will allow the Canadian tourism industry to recover in 2004.