Late Surge Helps : Summer Not So Hot for Tourism

Launched on a wave of optimism, summer tourist business in Orange County lagged projections badly at the midpoint but rallied in August and finished strongly, business people say.

Officials were hoping for a record year in an industry that annually attracts more than 30 million visitors to the county. But the predicted record number of tourists did not materialize. Consequently, results from the summer were mixed, they said.

“Based on the first six months, we were doing very well and heading for new overall records,” said Bill Snyder, president of the Anaheim Area Visitors and Convention Bureau. “In July, it turned soft, but, fortunately, August was a turnaround.”

He said business was up about 12% for the first half of the year. And there were other reasons at the beginning of the summer to predict a record-breaking year, he noted. Terrorism in Europe had caused a 20% drop in airline ticket sales to that continent, and the lower price of gasoline was giving Americans an incentive to travel.

‘Prime Market’

Snyder and other tourist-trade watchers said the popularity of Expo ’86 in Vancouver hurt travel in Southern California. By the time it closes on Oct. 13, Expo will have drawn 20 million visitors, well over the 13 million forecast.

“The Western states are our prime market, although we draw from other areas,” Anaheim’s Snyder said. “We underestimated the impact Expo had on those markets. They are drawing from the same markets we traditionally draw from.

“And that’s probably the logical reason our trade fell in July.”

Warren Rashleigh of the state Office of Tourism in Sacramento compared the summer of ’86 to the Olympic summer of 1984. That summer, projections of an extraordinary tourist season in California were not met, although then, as now, there was a slight surge late in the summer.

This year, said Rashleigh, tourism in Southern California fell short of projections while San Francisco and the wine country fared somewhat better.

Concern Over Crowds

He also said that the buoyant talk before the summer could have scared away tourists concerned with crowded conditions in Southern California. Industry observers recalled the same thing happening in 1984.

“There was so much talk (this summer) about the terrorism in Europe, the cheap price of gasoline and the good dollar-peso exchange that there was a lot of enthusiasm,” Rashleigh said. “But perhaps it was talked up so much that some people said, ‘It’s going to be too crowded, maybe we ought to hold off until later.’ ”

Disneyland was expecting at least 5 million visitors this summer. Bob Roth, the park’s publicity manager, would not give out specific figures but said Disneyland officials were not despondent over this summer’s turnout.

“We had a good summer. We are pleased with the way the season went. It was as good as we expected,” Roth said.

At Knott’s Berry Farm, Stuart Zanville said expectations for the summer were not fully realized.

“We had a good summer. It was just about at projections, but not as well as we had expected,” said Zanville, the park’s publicity director.

Zanville added that the summer was unusual in that tourist attendance was below expectations, but the number of local visitors increased over the previous summer. He said overall visits to the park were probably down 5% from last year, despite the surge in August.

In Laguna Beach, where most of the local economy is tourist-based, the summer’s results also were good, although projections were not met.

Jim Lyon, president of the Laguna Beach Chamber of Commerce & Civic Assn., said he “monitored the summer like a heartbeat by going out and talking to the merchants and other people.”

He said his conversations with merchants indicated a mixed season: Some businesses did well, others didn’t. Lyon said that although figures are not available, tourism revenue in the scenic seaside city probably were about 4% to 5% better than last year’s.

He added that the annual Sawdust Festival and the Art-A-Fair drew slightly fewer than the 300,000 visitors they usually attract each summer but that the beaches attracted about the same 30,000 to 35,000 visitors each day.

“I can’t say we achieved what we had expected,” Lyon said. “I think we overestimated a little bit, but we still did very well this summer.”

The 2-year-old Ritz-Carlton, the swank compound overlooking the ocean at Salt Creek Beach in Laguna Niguel, was probably the big winner in attracting this year’s tourists to Orange County.

The 393-room hotel was at near-capacity most of the summer and enjoyed “an outstanding August,” said Linda Adams, the publicity director.

August was so heavily booked that hotel management persuaded some of those failing to get reservations that month to reschedule visits to September. Adams said the first three weekends this month have been booked solidly and the hotel is actually “continuing summer through September.”

“We definitely exceeded expectations,” she said.