Change in Convention Center Show Policy Urged

Downtown business leaders Monday called for a major change in booking practices at the Los Angeles Convention Center, saying that the city-run exhibition hall could add $80 million each winter to the Southern California economy by luring more big national conventions.

The center now stresses consumer and trade shows, such as the annual boat show, for much of its bookings. The shows attract visits by local residents but few of the out-of-town conventioneers who spend money on hotels, restaurants and taxis.

Booking policy has become controversial as plans move forward for a $350-million expansion that will more than double the size of the Convention Center by 1990. Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley appointed a task force last year that met Monday but declined to take a position on the issue.

In essence, the Central City Assn., which represents the largest and wealthiest downtown corporations, said Monday that the city books a lot of consumer shows to make the Convention Center appear profitable. But a study that the association commissioned found that the Convention Center needs a subsidy from the city’s hotel tax every year to avoid deficits.

The study, by the accounting firm of Deloitte, Haskins and Sells, charges that the Los Angeles Convention Center is the only facility of comparable size that prefers local shows to the more lucrative national convention business.

“LACC’s booking policy is unique in the nation,” the study concludes.

It says that since 1977, Western cities have been more and more successful luring convention business but that Los Angeles has actually seen its use by national conventions fall.

The study conceded that going after big conventions could hurt the income to the Convention Center itself, requiring more subsidy by the city, but it said that the cost is more than made up by the added jobs and economic benefit to the area.

Chris Stewart, president of the Central City Assn. and a key Bradley adviser, said Monday that the mayor and the City Council should adopt the view that the Convention Center should be managed to boost the economy in the city and not to make a profit on operations.

Bradley’s task force, which received the study Monday, will meet in April to take a position on the booking controversy.