Pleasant Aftershocks : Big Bear, Palm Springs Report Few Tourist Cancellations Because of Quakes

Braced for a slew of cancellations, tourism industry officials in the Big Bear and Palm Springs areas--vacation destinations rocked by Sunday’s strong earthquakes--were pleasantly surprised Monday by a mostly subdued response to the temblors.

Despite a series of strong aftershocks, hotel managers and rental agents in the two tourist areas were cautiously optimistic Monday. While some said it is too early to assess the long-term impact of the quakes on tourism, they reported relatively little physical damage and few cancellations.

“I’m real happy and real surprised,” said Bob Pool, the owner of five motels in Big Bear. “I really thought it was going to hurt us bad.”

Pool said only one group had canceled its reservation. He said the group members, who were entertaining guests from out of state, apologized by saying, “Our friends aren’t from California and they don’t want to be near the epicenter.”

Brad Sullivan, executive director of the Big Bear Chamber of Commerce, was similarly surprised by the fortitude of the area’s visitors.

“We’re getting people who are still calling to make reservations for the Fourth of July,” Sullivan said. “I’m from Colorado and I’m a little more frightened than the people who are calling.”

Big Bear, a community of 30,000 in the valley below Big Bear Mountain, attracts more than 5 million visitors a year. With more than 1,000 rooms in various lodges and motels throughout the area, tourists provide more than half of all local revenue, Sullivan said.

Several years of drought in the late 1980s forced the area--once heavily dependent on the winter skiing season--to create a program of summer events in an effort to lure more year-round visitors. Last weekend was one of the season’s busiest, with a Scottish festival and a chili cook-off attracting sizable groups, including the Corvette Club, to the town.

Most of the resort’s visitors are Southern Californians, who tend to take earthquakes in stride, Sullivan and Pool suggested.

“They’re only calling to see if the room they’re staying in is going to be OK, and if the roads are open,” Pool said. “I think they believe the next earthquake could be anywhere, but not necessarily here.”

Colleen Dougherty, who takes reservations for eight small lodges in the Big Bear area, said she tells anxious callers to consider that, despite the strong quakes, “how we have little damage here. We really lucked out.”

In Palm Springs, hotel managers have also tried to reassure callers about the conditions of the roads and rooms. Cancellations for the Fourth of July--the last busy weekend before the summer lull--are “no more than usual,” according to Murrell Foster, the city’s executive director of tourism.

At the Rental Connection, an agency specializing in short-term rentals in Palm Springs, reservationist Pat Malon said she was “shocked” at how few people had called to change their vacation plans.

“If it would have been me, I would have called up and canceled,” Malon said.

But in the desert community, where reservations for the relatively quiet months of July and August are already at a dramatic low, Malon said the most serious blow to the local economy is not the result of natural disasters.

“It isn’t the earthquakes,” she said. “It’s the economy.”