Theme Parks Are Pulling for the Home Team : Tourism: They know that local crowds can make or break their profits, especially during times of economic slowdown.

Robert Gault, president of Sea World of California, knows that the San Diego aquatic park has developed a solid reputation among international tourists. During recent months, for example, an unexpected wave of Europeans bolstered attendance at a time when many cash-strapped Americans were staying at home.

But Gault also knows that the park’s fortunes are largely made or broken by Southern Californians who live just hours or minutes away from the park on Mission Bay. During 1990, more than half the 3.45 million visitors who will visit Sea World will be Southern Californians on day trips or extended weekends.

Gault expects those “locals” to play an increasingly important role in Southern California’s tourism industry during coming months, as out-of-state tourists scale back vacations in the face of economic slowdown, rising gasoline prices, increasing air fares and the threat of war in the Middle East.

State tourism officials are preparing a long-term campaign designed to pull in tourists from Eastern states, but Gault and executives at several other Southland parks are taking immediate steps to bolster attendance during the holiday season:

* Shamu’s Holiday Village at Sea World, which is being marketed exclusively in Southern California, will feature the Budweiser Clydesdales, a “world-class” ice-skating show and an arts and crafts festival.

Sea World last offered a seasonal attraction--a snow bowl where children and adults could play in the white stuff--in 1985. But park attendance is running 5% behind last year, when Sea World attracted 3.56 million visitors, and Gault believes that the “added value” of the seasonal attraction could help make up for a “significant” drop in out-of-state traffic during December.

* Attendance at the San Diego Wild Animal Park is running 5% ahead of last year’s 1 million total, thanks to several attractions. Nevertheless, the park will augment its annual “Festival of Lights” with a “snow bowl,” where visitors can toss snowballs or make snowmen.

* Knott’s Berry Farm in Orange County, where attendance is about 5% off from last year, has added a “Camp Snoopy Christmas Parade,” which is being advertised in Southern California. The parade is in addition to the park’s annual Christmas Crafts Festival.

The San Diego Zoo, Six Flags/Magic Mountain and Disneyland are not adding special holiday attractions. However, Six Flags will focus local advertising on its sixth annual Toys for Tots drive, and Disneyland, which is celebrating its 35th anniversary, once again will stage its annual “Very Merry Christmas Parade.”

Parks are also designing advertising and marketing campaigns aimed at Southern Californians that will kick in early next year.

Gault said Sea World will strengthen its marketing in the greater Los Angeles area in an attempt to pick up tourists from other Southland parks.

“We will have a big push (in Southern California) during 1991,” Gault said. Sea World’s “conservative” outlook for 1991 “assumes that we’ll be seeing more short vacations” by Californians who are hesitant to spend freely on out-of-state travel because of recession fears and concern that the cost of gasoline and air travel will rise.

Individual attractions can avoid dramatic attendance drops during the coming year if they actively court locals during both good times and bad, said Terry MacRae, co-owner of San Francisco-based Hornblower Dining Yachts, which in September acquired San Diego-based Invader Cruises.

Hornblower, which operates out of ports between San Diego and San Francisco, “knows that you can’t survive solely on the out-of-town guests,” MacRae said. “That’s why we pay attention to the local market. . . . That’s why we don’t forget them” during healthy economic times.

During a typical year, Californians account for 60% to 70% of all tourist-related spending in the state, said C. Lance Barnett, chief economist for the state Department of Commerce.

That percentage probably increases during recessions, Barnett said. During the 1979-81 recession, Californians helped keep tourism spending in the state constant, while industries were “flat on their back.”

Sea World’s Gault has linked soft attendance at Southern California’s various attractions to a “national malaise” that has hit parks across the country. But he said he also believes that Southern California parks are better equipped to deal with a recession than are Florida attractions, the Southland’s chief competitor for Eastern tourists.

Florida tourism officials, Gault said, are painfully aware that attendance at the state’s parks and attractions will suffer if the recession continues and airline fares and gasoline prices continue to rise.

During 1989, 18.5 million people, or 52% of Florida’s tourists, arrived via commercial airline flights, according to figures compiled by the Florida Division of Tourism. Nearly half those tourists traveled to Florida from New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Pennsylvania and California.

Of the 20.6 million tourists who drove to Florida during 1989, only 15.2% were from Georgia, which is just hours away from many Florida attractions. Nearly 25% of the tourists who arrived by car were from four relatively distant states (Ohio, New York, Tennessee and Michigan).

“I’d rather be here (near Los Angeles) than in Orlando . . . (which is) almost totally dependent upon out-of-state traffic,” Gault said.

But Southern California parks should not grow complacent just because millions of potential visitors are within a day’s drive, tourism officials said.

“We have to keep the awareness up in Los Angeles because people driving down here have to pass a lot of enticing things like Disney, Magic Mountain and the beaches,” said San Diego Zoo spokesman Jeff Joett. The zoo will place special emphasis on Los Angeles-area consumers because “we lost the L.A. market this past summer,” he said.

Zoo attendance is running 8% behind last year, when the zoo attracted more than 3 million visitors. During 1991, the zoo will try to increase attendance by focusing advertising and marketing on its upcoming 75th birthday and the opening of a new gorilla exhibit.

Sea World attendance, which peaked at 3.74 million in 1987 and has remained at about 3.5 million since, also intends to renew its emphasis on Southern California tourists during 1991, Gault said.

The park’s Southland push will include a competitively priced family pass that Gault described as one of the park’s strongest tools.

Sea World has 80,000 family passes in circulation, Gault said, and test marketing completed last summer indicates the new pricing strategy could generate a dramatic increase in sales.

Under the old program, a family of five (two adults and three children) paid $195 for an annual pass. Now the same family will pay $145, park spokesman Dan LeBlanc said.