County Will Hold Summit on Tourism : Leisure: Supervisors say strategy is needed to combat image problems and stepped-up competition in crucial industry.

Calling tourism “the lifeblood” of Orange County’s economy, the Board of Supervisors agreed Tuesday to hold a summit geared toward crafting a marketing strategy that will lure more visitors and keep them here longer.

The tourism summit is expected to convene sometime in the next 30 days at the Anaheim Convention Center and will feature more than two dozen representatives of the tourism industry across the county, said Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez, who came up with the idea after meeting with tourist industry representatives last December.

An estimated 38 million tourists visited the county in 1991, the most recent year for which figures are available, and pumped $4.5 billion into the economy. But the recent spate of Southland disasters, combined with the recession and the lure of tourist meccas such as Las Vegas and San Francisco, have contributed to a decline over the past few years, Vasquez said.

“There’s no question that the uprisings, the earthquakes and other issues have not only had an immediate effect on certain groups canceling, but others are choosing other areas,” Vasquez said. “The underlying feeling is, ‘We don’t want to be here.’ We need to regain some of that tourist dollar and there was a feeling that we needed to develop a countywide effort for marketing in order to do so.”

Vasquez said that in addition to the stigma of “fires, earthquakes, mudslides and everything else,” Orange County is simply being beat out by other areas that have stepped up efforts to draw a wide range of visitors.

“Los Angeles and San Diego have recently expanded their convention center and meeting facilities, and most significant of all perhaps is the retooling of Las Vegas, which is now going after the family dollar,” he said.

Possible topics for the summit: how to accommodate more trade shows and how to tap the Latin American tourist dollar, particularly travelers from Mexico who are increasingly visiting the region on business because of the North American Free Trade Agreement, Vasquez said.

Most of all, coordination will help visitors tap area resources with greater ease, he said.

“If you’re a tourist in Orange County now, and you want tickets to the (Orange County) Performing Arts Center, tickets to Disneyland and tickets to the Pond, there isn’t one number you can call to get them,” Vasquez said.

Packaging the county in a complete way may keep tourists here a day or two longer, he added.

“If we promote the Mission at San Juan Capistrano, if we promote the Richard Nixon Library, and that results in a tourist staying an extra day or two . . . well, you multiply that by 10,000, and you have just increased your revenue significantly,” he said.

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Vasquez and Supervisor William G. Steiner recommended the summit, which will be co-hosted by Anaheim Mayor Tom Daly.

“It’s not well-known that our performing and visual arts represent the 11th largest non-governmental employer in Orange County and $336 million a year in benefits,” Steiner said. “That’s why I think we need a broader approach to marketing our county, rather than the traditional Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm. There’s more to it.”

Steiner added that there are 130,000 people employed in the Orange County tourism industry--in restaurants, hotels and amusement parks.

“That’s a lot of people and a lot of jobs, and we need to nurture that,” he said.

Plans for the summit prompted widespread support Tuesday from industry leaders, some of whom planned the summit with Vasquez.

“Knott’s is committed to participation at any level,” said Knott’s Berry Farm spokesman Bob Ochsner. “Out-of-area tourism is somewhat down, and it has a lot to do with the earthquake in the short term. But I think it also has something to do in the long run with a lack of cooperation among all the chambers, the bureaus and the various attractions.”

Patrick Hynes, spokesman for the Anaheim Hilton and Towers, said conventions have kept up hotel business this year, but the number of leisure visitors are down.

“We have realized over the last several years that while our hotel is in Anaheim, near the Convention Center and just two blocks south of Disneyland, we are in Orange County and part of the appeal and the attraction should be that we are part of the fun and the sun of Southern California,” Hynes said.

Added Ken Moore, president of the Orange County Chamber of Commerce and Industry: “To continue to assume that people will come without us making a coordinated effort is probably wrong. The objective of the summit is to be sure that people who come to visit our attractions, like Disneyland or Knott’s Berry Farm, know that there are other things they can do, whether it’s going to the beach or to the mountains, or to a (Mighty) Ducks game.”

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The summit is part of a larger realization in Orange County that in order to compete for business as well as tourism, cities must come together, he said.

The chamber is now working on a countywide economic development consortium and also expects to sign an agreement with the county in April for a film office that would promote Orange County to the television and film industry, Moore said.

When cities have pooled resources to market their goods, the effort pays off, said Diane Baker, president of the Huntington Beach Conference and Visitors bureau.

Last year, Baker won support from 16 cities and from Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder to publish a 32-page Orange County visitors guide. Now, about 5,000 a week are distributed through John Wayne Airport alone, she said.

“We have inquiries from Australia and all over asking for more guides, and then they’re calling the individual cities who advertised for more information,” she said.

Baker is spearheading a new brochure, scheduled for publication within two months, that touts the attractions of six coastal communities, from Long Beach to Dana Point.

The summit is exactly the type of communication that will help individual cities attract more visitors and keep them in the region longer, Baker said.

“You have to look at regions, not just cities,” she said. “The more communication you can get between the 31 cities in Orange County, the more opportunity you have for business. We need to focus on how safe this area is, and all the attractions, both the natural and all the man-made attractions, because we really have both.”