Mall on Disney Travel’s Bus Route : South Coast Plaza Added to Tours

In an unusual marketing move expected to be closely watched by retailers, Walt Disney Travel Co. Inc. has added South Coast Plaza to the stops on its Southern California vacation packages.

For years, the travel agency, a subsidiary of Walt Disney Productions, has limited its tour stops to sightseeing attractions such as Universal Studios, the San Diego Zoo, and, of course, Disneyland.

But with tourists showing increasing interest in gift-shopping, the 13-year-old company has decided to offer visitors mini-bus shopping stops at South Coast Plaza, said Harry Takeno, western regional manager for Disney Travel.

The new business is a coup for South Coast Plaza, which for years has billed itself as a major Southern California attraction.

Now, tourists from Bakersfield to Boston are seeing travel brochures that cast the mall--which posted 1984 sales of more than $400 million--in the same limelight as the region’s most famous amusement centers.

With a $100-million expansion under way, South Coast Plaza is eager to make certain it remains the biggest-volume mall in the state. Although Southern Californians are familiar with it, the mall, owned by C. J. Segerstrom & Sons, is a mystery to many tourists.

Now, Disney Travel is pitching South Coast Plaza in travel brochures it sends to 23,000 travel agencies nationwide, as well as to a large number of agents overseas.

But Takeno, the Disney Travel manager, said it may be two years before the promotion greatly increases tourist awareness of South Coast Plaza.

Fashion Island, nearby, has also promoted itself through travel groups, but on a smaller scale, said Kathleen Lauren, marketing manager at Fashion Island. That center, which is undergoing a $30-million renovation, prefers to “target-market” its tours, Lauren said. Through Whirl-a-Round Tours of Newport Beach, Fashion Island has sponsored fashion shows and tours for gourmet groups.

In its efforts to appeal to tourists, Fashion Island also is establishing a relationship with the Newport Marriott hotel by sponsoring events that use both sites.

Anaheim Plaza became one of the first shopping centers to reach out to the tourist trade when it started sending mini-buses to Orange County hotels nearly four years ago. The City Shopping Center, in Orange, also began limited hotel bus service a few years back. And Fashion Island tried--then dropped--hotel limousine service.

South Coast Plaza’s mini-bus service began last July, with two 26-seat buses and a handful of hotel stops. It now leases three buses that make up to 27 stops, said Werner Escher, the Plaza’s community relations director. In line with the center’s posh image, drivers of the mint green, air conditioned buses wear tuxedos. Passengers on Disney Travel tours don’t have to pay the usual $4 round-trip fee.

The buses currently bring about 800 passengers a week into South Coast Plaza, up significantly from about 100 passengers weekly last year, said Jerry O’Connell, president of Pacific Coast Sightseeing Tours and Charters. The Garden Grove company owns and operates the South Coast buses. Plaza officials estimate that the number of mini-bus passengers could double, to 1,600 a week, within two years.

Plaza executives are even considering adding evening bus service to the center. Center officials hope all of this will bring them more shoppers like the woman from Bulgaria who recently stepped off a minibus and spent $5,000 in one plush Plaza department store. After she made her purchases, the woman asked to have her $4 minibus ticket validated by the store.