Decline in Number of Tourists Visiting San Diego in ’90 Bodes Ill for ’91 : Economy: Hotels, restaurants and tourist attractions suffered, and, when tourism is off, the effect trickles down to many businesses.

Last year was anything but stellar for San Diego’s tourism industry, and several officials say they hold little hope for improvement in 1991 if the economy limps along as it has over the past six months.

Discouraging signs abound. Attendance at all major San Diego tourist attractions was down in 1990 from the previous year, except at the Wild Animal Park. The countywide hotel occupancy rate declined and air passenger arrivals at San Diego’s Lindbergh Field grew by a scant 2%.

“It’s been a tough year for tourism in general,” said Dan LeBlanc, spokesman for Sea World of California, which expects its 1990 attendance to fall 5% short of last year’s totals. “Why? Who knows? You hear a lot of talk about the economy.”

Attendance at the San Diego Zoo was 2.72 million through October, down 6.6% from 2.9 million over same 10 months in 1989.

More than theme park operators have been hurt. The city’s museums saw turnstile clicks decline by 1.3%. Hotels have suffered as the competition for overnight tourist and business guest traffic intensified. The closing of Lubach’s and The Abbey, two of the city’s best known eateries, showed that the restaurant business also felt the pinch in 1990.

“There are always restaurants going out of business, but this year we have had some fairly dramatic examples of restaurants going under,” said Al Reese, spokesman for the San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau.

When tourism suffers, the entire San Diego economy feels the effects. Tourism generates about $3.1 billion in direct spending in the county, making it the third largest local economic component after manufacturing and military spending. The indirect economic impact of tourism is multiplied several times as those dollars trickle down through the local economy.

The year in tourism would have been much worse had it not been for the San Diego Convention Center, which completed its first full calendar year of operation after opening in November, 1989. The huge bay-side structure was the host of 49 conventions and trade shows in 1990, drawing 250,000 delegates and visitors. Convention delegates were widely credited for the 7.3% increase in total visitor spending in 1990 over the previous year.

San Diego tourism’s problems are shared throughout the nation. The slumping U.S. economy made tourists hesitant to take “long haul” trips to out-of-state destinations--the kind of tourist that San Diego attractions traditionally have relied on--and caused corporations to cut back on business travel.

“It’s essentially been a flat year,” Reese said. “But that’s probably better than what tourism has done nationwide.”

But how much better? Hotel occupancy at San Diego County hotels averaged 67%, not much above the 65% nationwide hotel occupancy average, according to Scott Smith, manager of the Pannell Kerr Forster accountancy and consulting office in San Diego.

Although demand for accommodations--as represented by hotel room nights sold--increased by 2.6% in 1990 over the previous year, construction of new hotels far outstripped the growth in demand. For that reason, the countywide average occupancy rate declined to 67% in 1990 from 70% in 1989, Smith said.

For the fourth straight year, total air passenger arrivals at Lindbergh Field grew at a slower rate than the previous year. Through October, airport arrivals were up 1.6% from the same period in 1989, down from the 3.4% growth rate in 1989 and significantly below the 12.6% growth in airport arrivals seen in 1986.

British Airways, Northwest and USAir each have eliminated at least one flight from Lindbergh Field during recent months, Reese said. That will “have an impact on tourism” because tourists will have fewer flights to choose from.

The loss of even a handful of flights hurts San Diego because “we don’t have the number of air carriers and the kind of competition” that exists in other larger U.S. cities, Reese said.

The departure of British Airways also reduced San Diego’s presence in foreign markets, Reese said. The only foreign commercial flights available to and from Lindbergh Field are offered by Continental and Aero California, which fly to Mexico City, and Air Alaska, which flies to Cabo San Lucas.

Reese said the continuing fare war between Southwest Airlines and America West could have a positive impact on San Diego’s tourism industry--especially if the deep-discounting spreads to USAir, American Airlines and United Air Lines, the three major carriers that dominate the “California Corridor” between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Times staff writer Greg Johnson contributed to this story.