Nixon Library--Just One of O.C.’s Lures : Tourism: Vacationers have a new reason to stay after coming to see Disneyland, analysts say.

For all the hoopla surrounding its dedication this week, the Richard M. Nixon Library and Birthplace will be a minor tourist attraction compared to such stalwarts as Disneyland, tourism officials say.

Nevertheless, they add, the library, which opens to the public Friday, may give visitors a reason to extend their stay in Orange County.

Disneyland, the nation’s second most popular tourist attraction after Walt Disney World, tops 14 million visitors annually, while the most popular presidential library in the country, the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library in Austin, Tex., draws about 430,000 visitors a year.

Rick Schwartz of Pannell Kerr Forster, an Irvine consulting firm that monitors the local hotel-motel industry, said he does not see the library as “a primary source of tourism. Hotels can probably use it as a bargaining tool and possibly pick up another night.”

Ann Hoffman, director of tourism for the Anaheim Visitor and Convention Bureau, said she has received calls from bus tour officials interested in adding the library to their rosters.

The library is likely to enhance the county’s reputation as a tourist destination, not just a side trip from Los Angeles or San Diego, local officials said.

“When we advertise outside the area, we try to make the distinction between Orange County and other attractions in Southern California,” said Bob Roth, a spokesman for Disneyland. “As much as the library will help people make that distinction, it is a benefit.”

Judy Bijlani, marketing director for MainPlace/Santa Ana, which shuttles shoppers from 22 hotels near Disneyland, agrees: “The more Orange County has to offer, the more viable it is to come and stay here.”

The library is a 20-minute drive from Disneyland during off-peak commute hours, and library officials plan to recruit visitors from among the 1 million conventioneers who meet at the Anaheim Convention Center each year, said Kevin Cartwright, a spokesman for the library.

The library will close at 5 p.m., but Cartwright said he hopes conventioneers and civic groups will rent the facility after hours. The rental money is needed because, unlike the rest of the nation’s presidential libraries, the Nixon facility will not rely on taxpayers for its operating expenses, estimated to be about $1.5 million per year.

At $3.95, adult admission to the complex will be the highest of all the presidential libraries. There’s no fee at the Johnson library; the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library charges adults $3.50.

However, the Nixon library plans to offer discounts for seniors and groups of 20 or more. Children under 12 will be admitted free.

Typically, visitors to Orange County first land in Los Angeles or San Diego before coming to Disneyland, said Schwartz, the hotel-motel analyst. They then visit a secondary attraction such as Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park or one of the South County beaches.

The average stay here is four days and three nights, said Hoffman of the Anaheim convention bureau. She said her office is trying to market the county as the more affordable place to stay from which sightseers can take a day trip to Hollywood or the San Diego Zoo.

Signs on the Orange and Riverside freeways will tout the Nixon library and town centers will stock brochures and tour books. In Boston and Austin, which draw tourists for reasons other than presidential libraries, more than 90% of the people who stop by the libraries plan their visits after arriving in town. That statistic bodes well for spur-of-the-moment trips to Yorba Linda.

Roth said he thinks people will make that trip. “The library is compatible with the type of visitor we’re after, parents with their kids,” he said.

Don Schewe, director of the Jimmy Carter library in Atlanta, said a presidential library and an amusement park are compatible attractions. The Carter center is on a main route to Disney World in Orlando, Fla.