L.A. Tourism a Bit Shaky After Quake

Optimistic by nature and necessity, Los Angeles’ tourism and convention industry already is putting its own spin on last week’s deadly earthquake, combatting stark media images of wrecked freeways and tent cities with a global blitz of feel-good faxes and phone calls.

The fear in tourism circles is that news stories and television pictures of yet another Southern California disaster could cause more damage than the quake itself to an industry worth an estimated $8.25 billion a year to Los Angeles County alone.

“It’s kind of disconcerting when you get calls from Germany, Russia and Britain saying, ‘Should we cancel our trip?’ and ‘Do you have any hotels still standing?’ ” said Bill Boyd, executive director of the Chamber of Commerce in Beverly Hills, where quake damage was minimal.

Determined to stamp out such scorched-earth scenarios, the Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau--still recovering from the 1992 riots--has contacted 25,000 international travel agents to assure them that most of the metropolitan area remains in good shape. Additionally, the bureau has invited 15 national meeting planners into the area to let them see for themselves.

“If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a visit is worth a thousand pictures,” said Michael Collins, the bureau’s vice president.

But it was too late to help the four-day California Gift Show at the Convention Center, which wrapped up this week, an extravaganza normally counted on to bring in 12% of the facility’s annual revenue. After the quake, about 5% of the exhibitors canceled--part of the reason the Convention and Visitors Bureau this week projected $308 million in lost business because of the temblor.

The American Film Marketing Assn., scrambling to make sure the same--or worse--doesn’t happen to its annual film market in Santa Monica next month, faxed 6,000 film producers and distributors in 66 countries a memo--”We’re Alright!”--that proclaimed hotels and movie theaters essentially unscathed.

“Just to let you know it was a bumpy ride, but Santa Monica survived the Northridge earthquake with flying colors,” the fax chirped, neglecting to mention that Santa Monica was actually one of the hardest-hit communities.

A recorded message on a Los Angeles visitors hot line takes a similarly breezy tone, noting that access from Los Angeles International Airport to points east is “not a problem” and that “all major attractions remain open.”

Disney officials, in turn, sent out a fax to travel agents to report: “Disneyland Resort unaffected by recent earthquake; business and fun as usual in Orange County.” Those who depend on tourism and convention business insist that they are not seeking to minimize the quake’s devastation, but rather to counter unfounded perceptions of a metropolis eternally burning and traumatized from fires, floods, riots and the like.

“We really took the offensive on this,” said Tim Kittleson, vice president of the film marketing association. “If people sit there and don’t hear from you, they start to think, ‘Is anything still standing?’ ”

Kittleson and others also must cope with the fact that apocalyptic images and rumors spread with surprising ease along the information superhighway--and key distinctions, such as Santa Clarita’s relatively remote location, may be lost on people in Egypt or Ecuador.

In Santa Monica, one official complained about how television networks fed images to Europe of broken stretches of Interstate 10 identified on the screen as the “Santa Monica Fwy.” The concern was that Europeans unfamiliar with the abbreviation Fwy. might be left with the impression that all of Santa Monica was in ruins.

“I don’t think they have any clue how much damage that does,” said Beverly Moore, executive director of the Santa Monica Convention and Visitors Bureau.

More than anything, tourism officials dread TV’s relentless portrayals of the worst pockets of disaster, which may encourage foreign news organizations to hype the disaster.

“I really hope the media, especially the Japanese media, doesn’t exaggerate the circumstances right now,” said Shiro Monden, general manager of Japan Travel Bureau, the largest coordinator of Japanese tourists in Los Angeles. “Japanese people are worried about fires and bridges collapsing in Downtown Los Angeles.”

A consoling factor for tourism officials is the timing of the quake--during the off-season, improving the chances that travelers will forget about it by summer.

Also, the temblor struck just as the eastern half of the nation was crippled by a killer cold snap, making it easy for spin masters to crow about Southern California’s fabled weather while noting that no region of the world is immune from natural disasters.

Finally, the quake may have done nothing more than confirm what people already know.

“Everybody realizes that this is an earthquake city, but it’s not the only destination in the world where you have earthquakes,” said Patrick Schoeneborn, vice president of Go America Tours, a major operator in the German market.

Los Angeles is “always a place people are going to come,” added Lisa Kruttschnitt, who does marketing for the California Office of Tourism. “In the big picture, there hasn’t been much damage. Visitors can still have an excellent time here.”

But behind such rosy outlooks lurk concerns that the quake will make it tougher than ever to woo visitors--at a time when business was finally improving after the riots.

The Japanese Travel Bureau said the number of Japanese tourists coming to Los Angeles dipped to 80,000 in 1992 as a result of the riots, down from 106,000 the year before, a drop of more than 20%.

The number crept upward last year, approaching the 100,000 mark, and observers say tourism throughout Southern California had begun a slow but steady recovery. Last week’s quake could put the industry back to square one, however, forcing it to overcome images of four-hour traffic jams in addition to the unending assortment of crime and gang news.

“Whatever progress we’ve made, it’s certainly a backward step,” said Diane Conti, president of VIP Meetings and Conventions, a Pacific Palisades firm that is managing a national convention of bilingual educators next month.

Conti said 20 delegates have canceled already, and with others, “We’ve had to coax them to come.”

A precursor of what may lie ahead could be the just-concluded California Gift Show, which organizers heavily promoted, hoping to take advantage of the newly expanded Downtown Convention Center. But as exhibitors of everything from hand-carved clocks to environmentally correct footwear packed up Wednesday and departed the cavernous hall, early attendance estimates were disappointing.

Gary Gelt, the show’s marketing director, said the show probably fell 5,000 short of its target attendance of 45,000 people. He blamed the quake. “I don’t want to be Pollyannish and say it didn’t hurt,” he said.

Economists at Chapman University in Orange this week predicted a 10% to 20% drop in tourism this year in Los Angeles County and 5% to 10% in Orange County, reversing pre-quake forecasts of moderate growth. And the Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau, in addition to projecting a $308-million drop in business, estimated that more than 9,000 jobs will be lost temporarily.

Elinor Oswald, owner of LA Custom Tours, worries about the impact on his business.

“I had a letter I was going to send out before the earthquake telling everyone how great it is here,” she said. “Now I can’t. . . . Everybody in the whole country knows about our problems. Who wants to pay to sit on our freeways?”

One fear is that even locals will be intimidated by the crippled transportation system and stop day-tripping, a worrisome notion in places like Venice Beach, one of the most popular tourist destinations in Southern California.

Merchants at the funky oceanfront boardwalk rely on local visitors arriving on the Santa Monica Freeway, a section of which is now unusable.

“People don’t want to go through the hassle,” fretted Hwan Song, chairman of the 180-member Venice Beach Assn.

But the tourism industry is nothing if not resilient, and at least one tour operator is hopeful he can turn the temblor to advantage.

He is Michael Fawcett of Insider Tours, based in Morro Bay, which offers such offbeat excursions as “Marilyn Monroe’s Los Angeles” and a “Historical Tour of Venice.” He anticipates some visitors will want to see the quake damage firsthand.

“It’s easy for me,” he said, “to accommodate them.”