Knott’s Will Close Park 2 Days a Week

Knott’s Berry Farm said Thursday that it will close the theme park two days a week for the first time in five years, a cutback that could be a sign of the recession’s effect on Southland tourism, though the park said otherwise.

The five-day schedule, with the park closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays, will start next week and continue for six weeks, after which the park will again be open seven days a week, said Stuart Zanville, a Knott’s spokesman.

The restaurants and gift shops that Knott’s operates outside the park will continue to be open daily.

Zanville said Knott’s decided on the shortened schedule to perform maintenance and repairs during the day that otherwise would be done at night, speeding the winter maintenance schedule.

“It was getting too difficult to do the off-season maintenance we have to do,” Zanville said.

He acknowledged that the post-holiday period is the park’s slowest time of the year but insisted that the decision to close two days a week was unrelated to attendance or the economic downturn.

Disneyland and Knott’s used to operate five-day schedules during slow periods until 1985. Disneyland opened seven days a week in February, 1985, and Knott’s followed a month later.

The Knott’s move comes as California theme parks face lean times.

A survey by Amusement Business magazine, a trade publication, estimated that Disneyland’s attendance declined 3% last year and that Knott’s attendance was flat. The figures, however, are primarily based on reporting by theme park executives and are difficult to validate.

Zanville said that 4 million people visited the theme park in 1990 and that an additional 1 million visited the adjacent gift shops and restaurants.

The park’s recent decision to cut the children’s admission price by more than 40% to $9.95 has increased attendance by 20% since Dec. 21, Zanville said.

James E. Harmon, a theme park consultant in Tustin, said most parks are dealing with the slowdown in tourism by getting “very creative” with sales and promotions, rather than by making cutbacks.

The major theme parks in Southern California that cater to international tourism--including Disneyland--will probably weather the economic downturn in reasonable shape, he said.