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A major league tourist pitch

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Times Staff Writer

Some cities advertise their cultural attractions to lure foreign tourists. Some advertise their foreigner.

In Boston, it’s Daisuke Matsuzaka, the pitching phenom from Japan who makes his first appearance at Fenway Park today. The Red Sox souvenir store is selling T-shirts and caps that say “Red Sox” or “Matsuzaka” in Japanese, the Old Town Trolley is hiring Japanese-speaking guides, and the Palm restaurant has translated its menu.

Their goal: grabbing some of the $14 million that tourism officials figure will be spent by sightseers who will visit Boston this year just because of Matsuzaka. Estimates are that the pitcher will draw as many as 10,000 Japanese who otherwise wouldn’t have made the trip to Beantown.

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Los Angeles is hoping for some of the same when soccer icon David Beckham begins playing for the Galaxy in July. Considering that Beckham isn’t only an international superstar but also the husband of a former Spice Girl and bona fide tabloid personality, “there’s going to be a lot of interest,” said Cristyne Nicholas, a marketing tourism consultant who is advising Boston on how to benefit from Matsuzaka fever.

“There’s a value to celebrity,” she said. Even when it comes to cities, “you have to look at new ways to refresh your product.”

After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Nicholas, who headed New York’s tourism bureau, lobbied the Yankees to hire Japanese outfielder Hideki Matsui and made him a tourism ambassador after he signed with the team in January 2003.

In Matsui’s first season, 293,000 Japanese visited New York -- and the number climbed to 322,000 in 2004.

That kind of increase would make Los Angeles happy. The city attracts more tourists from Britain than from any other overseas country. In 2005, the last year for which data are available, 361,000 British tourists made the pilgrimage, and city officials would like the number to return to pre-Sept. 11 levels. The peak was 465,000 in 1998.

Back in 2000, when Ichiro Suzuki signed with the Seattle Mariners, few knew sports tourism could be so rewarding.

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“It caught us quite by surprise,” said Michael Kurtz, the Seattle Convention and Visitors Bureau’s director of tourism development for Asia and Latin America. Suddenly, “everybody wanted to come to Seattle.”

In Suzuki’s second year, Seattle created a marketing campaign, “Living Cool, Loving Nature,” that starred Suzuki and printed a special brochure for distribution in Japan.

Six years later, Suzuki is still a Mariners star, and Japanese visitors seem more aware of Seattle as a destination, Kurtz said.

Suzuki faces off against Matsuzaka at Fenway Park today.

In Japan, Matsuzaka is celebrated for his prowess on the field and for his marriage to Tomoyo Shibata, a well-known Japanese television reporter. The Japanese media have descended on Boston in full force.

“We’re relying on the free media bump we’re going to get,” said Patrick Moscaritolo, president and chief executive of the Greater Boston Convention & Visitors Bureau. Because Matsuzaka pitches only once every five days, Japanese reporters “will most certainly focus on his life outside the ballpark.”

With the Japanese, “Boston is not that popular,” said Yee Ih Hae, a Japanese-speaking clerk at the Red Sox souvenir store who was hired shortly after the team signed Matsuzaka.

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“Usually, they go to New York -- but this year, they’ll come to Boston.”

Los Angeles is no novice at welcoming foreign athletes. In 2002, the city’s “See My LA” tourism campaign in Japan starred then-Dodgers pitcher Hideo Nomo, who came to L.A. in 1995 as the first Japanese player in the major leagues since the 1960s.

“For the Japanese market, the fact you can go somewhere where a famous person went is a really big deal,” said Carol Martinez, a spokeswoman for LA Inc., the city’s tourism bureau.

In 2002, former Dodger Kazuhisa Ishii took part in the “See My LA” campaign in Japan. L.A. Galaxy player Hong Myung-Bo of South Korea helped promote a sweepstakes in his country that offered a chance to attend a game here.

Tourism from South Korea and Japan increased after those promotions, Martinez said.

Carl Winston, director of USC’s school of hospitality and tourism management, warned that the city should recognize that a celebrity athlete isn’t likely to be the sole reason a tourist decides to come to town.

The buzz around a superstar pitcher or a midfielder is like a commercial for a place. “Commercials make you aware; they create an impression,” Winston said. “But that impression may or may not make you buy.”

With David and Victoria Beckham’s star power, Martinez said, L.A. can hardly lose. David Beckham is known around the world as both an athlete and a celebrity, she said, and it can’t hurt that he’s so good-looking.

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“If there’s a Korean player, interest from Korea will soar,” Martinez said. “But since it’s David Beckham, there will be interest from everywhere.”

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alana.semuels@latimes.com

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