Quake to Have Lasting Impact on S.F. Tourism : Tourism: Although most of the tourist attractions and amenities from Fisherman’s Wharf to Union Square are back in business, it may be several months before visitors return to San Francisco in appreciable numbers.

If you had telephoned the San Francisco Convention & Visitors Bureau last weekend seeking information on events in the city, you would have heard a recording that began:

“In the aftermath of the earthquake. . . .”

This week, if you make that same call, chances are that no mention will be made of the quake of 5:04 p.m. on Oct. 17. As far as the tourism industry is concerned, the sooner it is forgotten, the better.

Hoteliers, restaurateurs--everyone connected with the city’s largest industry wants the world to know that San Francisco is back on its feet.

It may have briefly dropped to one knee, but it was never knocked out for the count.

“Everything is normal; we have not fallen into the ocean,” said Bob Werbe, chairman of the board of The Gray Line, a major tour-bus company and former president of the Union Square Assn. “We really have not suffered that much damage. All of the stores are open and it’s business as usual.”

But is it?

Interviews conducted last week indicate it might be several months before the the tourists return in appreciable numbers. If true, that would be of major concern to a city that brings in $3.4 billion a year from its visitors.

October traditionally is one of the best months for the tourism business in San Francisco, and the city’s hotels were at or near 100% capacity on the day the quake struck.

“The town was full; we had 42,000 people staying in our hotel rooms when it hit,” said John Marks, executive director of the Convention & Visitors Bureau.

By the middle of last week the hotel occupancy rate had dropped to little more than 30%, with a resulting loss of business for the city’s restaurants, tour operators, stores and the like.

“Our business is a mirror image of the hotel occupancy,” Werbe said. “If the hotels are full, we’re full. If their business is off 50%, our business is off 50%. The last few days, hotel business has been off drastically.”

Ed Moose, co-owner of the Washington Square Bar and Grill, said: “Most businesses are just in a state of shock. This is supposed to be the best month of the year. October is our month and the baseball (World Series between the San Francisco Giants and Oakland Athletics) made it a rare super-month. It’s gone forever now.”

According to a reader poll in the latest issue of Conde Nast Traveler magazine, San Francisco is the top tourist destination in the United States and is No. 2 worldwide behind Florence, Italy. The city attracts 13 million visitors a year, 3 million of whom spend at least one night in the city’s hotels.

Anything that dissuades those tourists from visiting, therefore, has a widespread and far-reaching effect.

“It’s absolutely impossible at this point to put a dollar figure to it,” Marks said when asked what the earthquake might cost in lost tourist revenue.

“We’re just treading water,” Moose said. “A number of places will go out of business. There are so many marginal small businesses, including some restaurants, that a number literally will not be able to survive.”

The main problem the city faces is in persuading potential visitors that all is well without seeming callous toward those who have suffered greatly as a result of the 7.1 quake. It’s a difficult line to walk--between realism and what might be perceived as insensitivity.

“The biggest challenge facing us,” Marks said, “is trying to combat the disaster side of the story--which we don’t minimize, because what’s being depicted did happen, it’s real--but our airport is operating normally, all public transportation in San Francisco is working, including the cable cars, every one of San Francisco’s major downtown hotels is open and functioning.

“We have been on the phone with every major convention client, every major tour operator, both domestic and international, trying to get the story out that the tourism infrastructure in San Francisco is alive and well.”

As so often happens in such cases, the role of the media, and particularly television, in covering the disaster is being questioned. Almost without exception, those interviewed said they felt the extent of the damage had been misrepresented, especially overseas.

Flo Snyder, director of the state Office of Tourism in Sacramento, said she has kept “in constant touch” with the San Francisco Convention & Visitors Bureau, and that the concern she has heard expressed centers on just this matter.

“They don’t see any major impact on the city in the future,” she said. “Their main concern is how it’s portrayed in the media. I guess some of the early reports in Japan and other parts of the world had San Francisco devastated and one massive fire, which was not the case at all.”

Others voiced the same feeling.

“I have a sister who was visiting Washington, D.C. (at the time of the earthquake),” said Bob Begley, executive director of the Hotel Council of San Francisco, “and the poor woman called me and said she thought the city was leveled, that everything was in flames. . . .

“I understand (the need to) report all of the tragic things--for example, the Marina District (damage and fire), the I-880 (freeway collapse) and the Bay Bridge--but that represents maybe 1% or 2% of the total area. Everything else is fine.

“We’ve got 6 1/2-million people living here, and we lost 150 or whatever, which is tragic, and we lost 60 houses, which is awful, but compared to the (size of the) area it’s not very bad. But there’s no way that you can show the true picture because the disaster motif has just taken over.”

Added Virginia Farr, executive director for the International Visitors Center: “What I’m finding is that the portrayal of this as a citywide disaster is widespread, and it’s not. For the number of people in this area it’s really remarkable and wonderful that it isn’t worse. I’ve had calls from all over the world that were just frantic because of what they were seeing on television.”

One-third of San Francisco’s visitors come from overseas, most of them from Asia and Europe, and, according to Marks, “the farther you get away from San Francisco, the bigger the quake becomes (in the public’s perception).

As one way to overcome this image, the Convention & Visitors Bureau is putting together a new post-quake video of the city and its attractions. This will be distributed nationwide within the travel and convention industry.

How long will it be until business returns to normal? Opinions vary.

“My gut feeling, as opposed to my hope and my optimism, is that it’s going to take months,” Moose said. “It may be three to six months, minimum, before people have real confidence in coming back here.

“I’ve talked to too many of them from out of town who say, ‘Well, it’s a great town but we’ll be back later.’ I think after four or five straight days of seeing the same disaster footage run over and over again, it’s just burned into their minds about how brutal this thing (an earthquake) can be.”

Jerome Adams, owner and operator of the Cartwright Hotel and a member of the Convention & Visitors Bureau board of directors, is more optimistic.

“I believe that people have a short memory,” he said, “and in a month’s time the quake will be forgotten. People forget, and they go about their business.”

Begley agrees.

“People are not saying, ‘Well, that’s it; we’re never going there again.’ That just hasn’t happened,” he said. “I think that after the first of the year we’ll be back in business.”

The turning point, Begley said, was when the city’s cable cars resumed operation.

“Once they came on, that was like lighting the Statue of Liberty,” he said.

Even Marks, however, believes that it will take some time for San Francisco to heal.

“I suspect that before we begin to approach normalcy we will probably have to go through the holiday season,” he said. “The holiday season will have a very positive effect on San Francisco. It will allow people to refocus attention to their own lives, not to the television set. Time is a wonderful healer.”

The general feeling in the city was perhaps best expressed by Jeff Knollmiller, marketing director for the Campton Place Hotel near Union Square.

“There’s a real sense that we’ve been through the worst,” he said, “and that now it’s time to pick up and move ahead.”