Local Tourism Sees a Slight Gain in 1993 : Industry: The number of tourists reaches 37.8 million, up from 37.7 million, while attendance by conventioneers drops 7%, according to the Anaheim Area Visitor & Convention Bureau.

Orange County’s tourism industry, flat for two years, barely moved again last year as 37.8 million people visited the county, according to the Anaheim Area Visitor & Convention Bureau.

Convention attendance, though, slumped 7% to 950,916 visitors.

“Given our current national economic downturns during the past two to three years, our region is actually doing pretty well,” said Elaine Cali, a spokeswoman for the bureau. “We are still considered a premier convention and tourism destination.”

Notwithstanding such optimism, the hotel industry is hoping this will be a better year.

The Anaheim Hilton and Towers, Southern California’s largest hotel, with 1,600 rooms, struggled last year to maintain its level of occupancy by garnering such new business as booking rooms for several professional sports teams, said hotel spokesman Patrick Hynes.

But 1994 already is looking better. “We have a number of conventions on the books for 1994,” he said, “and when we see a good convention year, we normally see a pickup in tourism.”

Attendance fell somewhat at the county’s two major amusement parks, Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm. But Knott’s had more customers in the last three months of the year than it did in 1992’s final quarter, said park spokesman Bob Ochsner. He would not disclose the percentage increase except to say it was “double digits.”

“We were very pleased with the fourth quarter and expect a very strong new year,” he said.

Overall, the number of tourists visiting the county barely changed, remaining significantly lower than the peak year of 1990 when the county was host to 38.4 million tourists. The county had about 37.7 million visitors in 1992 and about 37.8 million the previous year.

Cali said that the county continued to attract large conventions in 1993, such as the National Assn. of Music Merchants and the National Electronic Packaging and Production Conference, which brought in 45,000 and 37,700 visitors, respectively.

Tourism Remains Slow

Tourism in Orange County last year remained virtually unchanged from 1992 and has been flat since 1990, when it reached a five-year high of 38.4 million visitors. Convention attendance last year dipped below 1 million after hovering around that level since 1989. Tourism and convention attendance, in millions:

Tourists 1989: 35.0 1990: 38.4 1991: 37.8 1992: 37.7 1993: 37.8

Conventioneers 1989: 1.1 1990: 1.0 1991: 1.1 1992: 1.0 1993: 0.9

Source: Anaheim Area Visitor and Convention Bureau