L.A. Riots Spark Fear in Travelers : Tourism: Business leaders fear backlash may harm what was expected to be a good summer for Southland attractions.
Although Orange County was unscathed by the rioting that consumed parts of Los Angeles last week, county business leaders visiting here said they are concerned that a tourism backlash may strike hard at Southern California, sapping what many thought would be a profitable summer.
Disneyland President Jack Lindquist, who was recently named to the California Tourism Commission, said Tuesday that park officials in Anaheim received more than 1,000 telephone calls from prospective guests concerned about their travel safety.
“They wanted to know whether Disneyland was burning down or whether the freeways had been closed,” Lindquist said while leading an Orange County delegation touring Euro Disneyland. “It’s got to have a major impact. Unless you have business in the area, I just don’t know that people are going to think about getting on a plane and coming to L.A.
Lindquist said attendance at Disneyland was down by 30% last weekend. And while he attributed the decline to the curfew imposed in Los Angeles County during the rioting, Lindquist and others said the incident mars the outlook for local tourism businesses, especially those closer to Los Angeles.
The pessimistic view was not universal, however. Jim Stovall, who operates a string of five hotels with about 700 rooms on the Disneyland perimeter, said Tuesday that it is “too early to tell” how the series of incidents would affect his businesses.
Stovall said occupancy rates last weekend actually increased as Los Angeles residents fled to the safer environs of Orange County. However, he said most of those guests have checked out this week. He said it is difficult to speculate whether the riots would translate into a smaller bottom line.
“I gotta be hopeful that people coming from out of town are educated enough to distinguish between Los Angeles and Orange County,” Stovall said during a tour of Euro Disney resort hotels.
Regardless, the recent unrest in Los Angeles has weighed heavily on the minds of Disney executives here, a number of whom are involved in the planning of the $3-billion Anaheim expansion and have been reading accounts of the civil unrest in local newspapers.
“I think the public’s perception will be shaped by how the political leadership deals with this thing,” said Kerry Hunnewell, the Disney Development Co. vice president who heads the Anaheim expansion plans. “The initial coverage has not been very flattering. And I don’t think anyone can answer the question of when things will get significantly better. Obviously, we are concerned about security.”
For some time, Hunnewell said, senior Disney officials have been concerned with security issues in Anaheim in the wake of news reports about the growth of gang activity in the area surrounding the park.
Although plans for the Disneyland Resort expansion in Anaheim call for liberal use of walkways open to the public, Hunnewell said there are existing contingency plans that would allow the company to close off the resort during times of trouble.
“This company is not one to put its head in the sand,” Hunnewell said. “This concerns us. We are not building something like we did in Florida or here where there is a lot of open space.”
Laurent Devillers, general manager of tourism in France’s Seine-et-Marne County, said the news had served to shatter long-held beliefs about living conditions and wealth in America.
“The French seemed to have a great idea about the way of life in America,” Devillers said. “They believed that there was a rich, high way of life. But they realize now that many don’t have enough money to have a regular life.”
