THE TURBULENT TRAVEL INDUSTRY : Tourist Spots Feel California Malaise : Travel: Shock waves from the Golden State’s slumping economy can be felt in vacation destinations from Mexico to Hawaii.

Surrounded by the beaches of Acapulco Bay and a neighborhood full of restaurants and late-night clubs, the 22-story Hyatt Regency Hotel offers everything most fun-loving tourists desire.

So, why has the sleek hotel struggled this summer?

The main answer lies nearly 2,000 miles to the north in California, said Rodrigo Trujillo, director of marketing for Hyatt International in Mexico. This year, group tours from the Golden State--the single largest source of guests for the 690-room hotel--are down 15%.

“It’s the recession in California,” Trujillo said. Tourist traffic from “New York is holding steady. Miami is very good. Atlanta is doing very well. But Los Angeles is dead.”

Acapulco hoteliers are not alone in fretting about their California customers. Shock waves from the Golden State’s slumping economy can be felt from the beaches of Waikiki to the glittering casinos of the Las Vegas Strip.

In Hawaii, the number of California visitors fell more than 20% in early summer, according to the latest available figures. Nevada officials say the California economy is primarily to blame for the state’s mediocre gaming results earlier this year. And Mexican tourist executives say the California crowd, which accounts for as much as 60% of U.S. visitors to resorts on its western coast, is smaller than in years past.

In the face of state and the nation’s drawn-out economic slowdown, the travel industry has offered up ever-larger discounts to their California clientele. In Las Vegas, visitors can gamble the day away and spend as little as $9 a night midweek for a hotel. Three nights in Puerto Vallarta goes for about $300--round trip air fare included. Two people can relax at a beachfront Hawaiian hotel and get a free rental car for $95 a day.

But sometimes the discounts don’t work as well as they used to.

Advertised specials in California recently resulted in only half the anticipated bookings for the Outrigger Hotels Hawaii, the 50th state’s largest hotel chain.

“When economic problems hit California, it shows up in the number of visitors we see,” said Bryan C. Klum, director of marketing for the 28-hotel Outrigger chain, which depends on Californians for 20% of its business. Despite additional discounts and advertising, the chain recently saw the number of California visitors decline by 2% compared to a weak 1991.

“We are working very hard to get as much business as we can,” said Klum, who said there are some signs of improvement. “Much of that will be dependent on the recovery of the California economy.”

The state’s slump was a rude surprise for tourist destinations that have grown rich with Californians looking for an escape.

“California has always been good to the hoteliers of Mexico,” said James Alfaro, corporate director of sales for the Sol Group, which owns resort hotels in Puerto Vallarta and Los Cabos at the tip of Baja California. “For every Mexican that visits Los Cabos, there are six Americans”--and most are Californians.

Travel officials have grown increasingly worried as bad economic news continued to pour out of California. Maury Myers, president of Aloha Airlines, Hawaii’s largest inter-island carrier, recalls reading newspaper stories earlier this year about the massive job losses anticipated in California aerospace industry.

“That really strikes terror in our hearts,” Myers said. “Those people are in the midst of our prime market. Those are the kinds of things that make people pull back from traveling.”

Hawaii and Mexico were also hurt by the half-off airline fare war this summer that applied to destinations only on the U.S. mainland.

“Hawaii got hurt big time by the half-price sale,” said Thomas A. Jackson, president of World Travel Bureau, an Orange County-based travel agency. “It just stopped. It just hit the wall.”

Mexico Travel Experts, a Los Alamitos travel agency, said business is down 20% from last year as a result of the recession and the domestic fare war.

“People are traveling within the United States instead of going outside,” agency President Janice Reyes said. “I hope it has bottomed out. The only way it can go is up.”

In Nevada, casinos took in $5.69 billion from gamblers during the yearlong period ending in June. That’s a 2.1% increase for an industry that’s used to posting double-digit gains. Gaming revenue actually declined in Las Vegas, where 60% of the visitors come from Southern California.

“Your economy is in pretty bad shape--it’s reflected in those numbers,” said Harlan Elges, chief of administration for the Nevada Gaming Control Board.

But Nevada seems to have offset the impact of its neighbor’s deep economic woes with generous room discounts that have kept roads leading to Las Vegas and other gaming areas busy with cars bearing California plates.