Anaheim’s Convention Center Attracts Record Crowds Again
For the fourth year in a row, Anaheim lured a record number of delegates to its giant convention center in 1986, the Anaheim Visitor and Convention Bureau said Monday.
The surge in the number of conventioneers--925,350 of them, or 5.8% more than in 1985--resulted in part from the openings of thousands of additional hotel rooms in Anaheim and the surrounding area over the past two years, said Bill Snyder, the bureau’s president.
Once in Orange County, the visitors emptied their wallets and spent a record $599 million, a 5.7% increase over 1985. Almost half of those dollars--or 47.4%--went for hotel accommodations, the bureau reported. Restaurants, both those at hotels and those operated independently, collected 25.7% of those dollars.
While Disneyland, Knott’s Berry Farm and Orange County’s beaches did their part to draw visitors, Snyder said, Anaheim’s aggressive promotion was a major factor behind the boom.
Snyder predicted that Orange County’s tourism business this year “will be as good and maybe slightly better” than in 1986.
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