COVER STORY : Unsung Attractions : Group Promotes Ethnic Enclaves as Tourist Destinations in a Drive to Reap a Bigger Slice of the Billions Spent by L.A. Visitors

A low-lying galaxy of neon signs twinkled overhead as Maryanna Watson of Houston, Tex., paused for a cigarette along Universal Studios’ pristine CityWalk.

As she waited for relatives to emerge from a gleaming gift shop nearby, the 50-something grandmother went over her one-week Los Angeles itinerary: Disneyland, Universal Studios, Westwood Village, Knott’s Berry Farm, Marilyn Monroe’s grave, and stars’ homes in Beverly Hills and Brentwood.

But would she see the Watts Towers or the murals of East Los Angeles, hear live jazz in Leimert Park or stop for lunch in Koreatown?

“No, not at all,” Watson said, shaking her head. “Not at all. I have no interest in seeing any of that. The pictures I have of these neighborhoods are of gangs and crime and slums. I mean, is there another side?”

Until recently, the culturally rich “other side” of Los Angeles’ ethnic neighborhoods--including East Los Angeles, South Los Angeles and Koreatown--has been largely ignored by the local tourism industry, which has traditionally presented the city as a palm-lined playground for the rich and famous, dotted with theme parks and populated by suntanned blondes.

To many visitors--following mainstream tourist maps, advice given them by travel agencies and tour operators, and their own fear stemming from negative images formed while watching the news--vast areas of the city are still perceived as little more than dangerous wastelands to be avoided en route to Disneyland or the beach.

These perceptions can be changed, however, according to a coalition of more than 30 labor leaders, community activists, business owners and local artists known as the Tourism Industry Development Council.

The nonprofit, privately funded group came together with seed money from the Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union shortly after the 1992 riots, when the city’s tourism industry plunged into a two-year slump as images of burning buildings obscured prospective visitors’ notions of fun in the sun.

The coalition has challenged the local tourism industry to mitigate some of the damage done to the city’s image by promoting the sights, sounds and tastes in the urban neighborhoods of the “real” Los Angeles. Such a move, the group reasons, could dispel negative stereotypes while drawing tourist dollars into ethnic communities that have until now missed out on the action.

“One of the most interesting things about Los Angeles has to do with the people who live here,” said Madeline Janis-Aparicio, executive director of the group. “They have a fascinating history, and there is a market for history, social context and interesting cultural issues. It’s much better and safer for people to see the whole picture, negative and positive.”

So far, the coalition has had some success. Last summer, it presented a series of guided tours during the World Cup soccer finals, taking foreign and American journalists through East Los Angeles, South Los Angeles, Koreatown, Pico-Union and Hollywood to see the sights and learn about each neighborhood’s historical and cultural identity.

The tours caught the attention of the Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau, once criticized by the coalition for ignoring inner-city attractions in its tourist literature. Bureau officials granted the coalition $12,000 to produce a 15-minute video of things to do and see in the city’s ethnic communities, compiled from footage shot during the tours.

Titled “On Any Day,” the video was released late last spring and is being distributed by the bureau to tour operators and convention planners worldwide.

“I think they were sort of floored by all the press coverage we got,” Janis-Aparicio said. “They sent a few people on the tours, and I think they were intrigued by some of the potential they saw. That was the clincher--that’s what got ‘em.”

A major part of East Los Angeles’ tourism potential involves the area’s myriad rainbow-hued murals, which cover everything from the walls of busy stores along historic Brooklyn Avenue--once home to the city’s first Jewish community--to the housing projects of Estrada Courts, one of the largest and oldest collections of mural art in the city.

Walking along the crowded, seven-block stretch of Cesar E. Chavez Avenue that makes up the historic Brooklyn Avenue corridor, Tomas Benitez of Self-Help Graphics--a gallery and workshop that is the hub of the Eastside art scene--pointed out different murals along the way, calling out the names of well-known local muralists like a museum guide pointing out the works of old masters in the Louvre.

“This one here is by Paul Botello,” he said, referring to an elaborate piece at the corner of Brooklyn Avenue and Soto Street, then directing his finger at another colorful wall across the street. “And that one over there, that older one, was done by the East Los Streetscapers.”

About a mile away, a vividly chaotic shopping experience unfolds as one enters El Mercadito, a bustling, three-story indoor bazaar where one can browse for knickknacks and vaquero --or cowboy--gear, sip a cold glass of jamaica , a punch made from hibiscus flowers, be serenaded by strolling mariachis, buy a CD of the latest salsa hits or pick up some fresh cuts of beef, all displayed within yards of one another. In the parking lot, street vendors jockey for the best spots near a mural of the Virgin of Guadalupe, which shares wall space with a portrait of actor-activist Edward James Olmos.

In South Los Angeles, visitors can find much more than the famous Watts Towers: late-night jazz cafes, art galleries and African clothing boutiques have made Leimert Park Village one of the area’s most tourist-ready spots. The organizers of the African Marketplace, an annual summer festival of African and African-influenced foods, crafts, music and dance on the Westside, may soon bring the marketplace to South Los Angeles’ Crenshaw area and make it a year-round fixture.

An important slice of Los Angeles history can be found along Central Avenue, once the center of the city’s African American community and, from the 1930s to the 1950s, home of a thriving jazz scene. The historic Central Avenue strip is anchored by the landmark Dunbar Hotel, which dates from 1928 and is the city’s first hotel built by and for African Americans. Restored to its former glory a few years ago, it soon will house a museum showcasing the history of black Los Angeles.

“Different communities have things that make them unique, and ours is history,” said Anthony Scott, president of the Dunbar Economic Development Corp., which restored the hotel. Hoping to revitalize the community and increase its appeal to outside visitors, the corporation is buying and restoring other historic but run-down Central Avenue structures.

“We have some history here, something we want to share,” Scott said.

Among Koreatown’s greatest assets are its fragrant eateries, more than 100 restaurants serving Korean barbecue, dumplings, noodles and countless other dishes, and its markets where one can buy healing herbs and Korean fast food all in one stop. The history of Korean Americans is documented at the Korean American Museum on Wilshire Boulevard, which houses photographs dating back to the turn of the century.

Although Koreatown already attracts a large number of Korean tourists, Korean Youth and Community Center director Bong Hwan Kim says the area is seldom frequented by other out-of-town visitors. A little bit of information directed at the outside world, he says, could go a long way to attract tourist dollars.

“It’s critical that the mainstream travel industry understand that one of the most interesting things about Los Angeles is its diversity,” Kim said. “I think some tourists would really enjoy seeing the largest Korean community outside of Korea.”

A few small tour companies and historical preservation groups--such as Black L.A. Tours and the Los Angeles Conservancy--already take some visitors to see the inner-city’s sights and historical points of interest, but their reach has traditionally been narrow, catering mostly to students and special interest groups.

Convention and Visitors Bureau Vice President Michael Collins, who for the past two years has been involved in the production of “Cultural Kaleidoscope”--a series of guidebooks to the Latino, African American and Asian American cultures in the city--believes that the tourism potential found in ethnic neighborhoods could easily translate into mainstream tourist dollars with the right marketing push.

“Tourists are always interested in something new,” Collins said. “Our ethnic communities have an international appeal, and it’s important to take advantage of what we have.”

But if some of the tourist dollars that flow into Los Angeles--$9.5 billion last year--do eventually find their way into the inner city, it is the coalition’s goal to ensure that they remain there, nurturing local businesses and benefiting low-income tourism industry employees who live there.

Maria Elena Durazo, president of Local 11 of the Hotel and Restaurant Employees’ Union, says that about 80% of the union’s 9,000 members live within the central city neighborhoods often bypassed by the tourist trade.

“These communities have traditionally been excluded from the dollars that come into the city through tourism and conventions, so small businesses in these neighborhoods have not been reinforced or helped in any way,” she said.

The discretionary income being sought by the tourism council and bureau officials is principally that of foreign tourists, particularly Europeans and Asians, who together accounted for more than 60% of international visitors to Los Angeles last year.

According to Collins, foreign tourists were less put off by the riots and last year’s earthquake than domestic visitors, partly because they are not as heavily bombarded with negative media images as Americans are, and partly because they wish to see not just tourist attractions, but how people in the United States live.

As she leisurely ate ice cream on Universal CityWalk, Helga Haugsnes, a 24-year-old Norwegian tourist, represented the ideal foreign visitor that the coalition and bureau officials have in mind: young, adventurous and eager to see real slices of Los Angeles life.

“I’d kind of like to get out of these tourist places,” she said, motioning to the surrounding throng of T-shirt-clad, fanny-packed vacationers. “I’d like to see the back streets, places and people you usually don’t see.”

Europeans and Asians have long been drawn to ethnic tourist attractions in New York, where private tour companies take busloads of largely foreign tourists into Harlem churches to hear gospel music.

Until recently, city funds from hotel occupancy taxes helped New York’s individual boroughs promote neighborhood tourism by developing maps, restaurant guides and other literature to acquaint visitors with alternative destinations. Community-based efforts in cities including New Orleans and Philadelphia have also helped put ethnic tourist attractions on the map.

But there is a downside to the attention: some private, for-profit tour operators in those cities, seeing the revenue possibilities, have developed tours that take tourists into ethnic neighborhoods, show them the sights, then shuffle them out without allowing them a chance to shop, eat or otherwise spend money in local businesses.

“There has to be community control, or it’s just not worth it,” Janis-Aparicio said. “What good is it to turn South-Central into a zoo, where a bunch of people from outside come in and make money, but don’t leave anything behind?”

As eager as they are to put out the welcome mat, coalition members in the communities in question share a common fear of exploitation.

“We don’t need any outside entities coming in and taking control,” said Avril Harris, director of Leimert Park’s Crossroads National Education and Arts Center and a key player in the development of tourism in the area. “We have all the resources and intellect necessary right here.”

Although Convention and Visitors Bureau officials are quick to point out that their board of directors is racially integrated, most members represent major travel industry concerns such as hotels and airlines, not community-based organizations. However, Janis-Aparicio hopes to find a place for the coalition at the bureau’s planning table to ensure that community members will have input on how their neighborhoods are sold.

For now, the coalition is participating in the bureau’s plans to bring the Travel Industry Assn. of America’s annual “Pow-Wow” convention to Los Angeles next summer. Tour operators from more than 60 countries attend this three-day mega-convention to book most of their U.S. travel business for the coming year.

The coalition plans to host a new series of inner-city tours for visiting travel industry executives, and bureau officials are contemplating pairing the coalition with a tour company that books business in Europe to develop an urban tour package that will be ready to sell by the time the convention rolls around.

But before tourists can begin to bite, travel agents and tour operators must first be convinced that the attractions that urban Los Angeles has to offer are good enough--and safe enough--to recommend to their clients.

“The education should begin in the tourism industry,” said Wendela Biggerstaff of Go America Tours, an international tour company with offices in the LAX area that books mostly middle-aged European travelers. “No one has ever shown us the murals in East Los Angeles, and it would be great if tour operators could get some information about things like that. A lot of tourists still ask us where the riots were, and where not to go. But they will do what you tell them to do, so long as they feel comfortable.”

To feel at ease in the inner city, Biggerstaff said, tourists probably will want some sort of accompaniment, such as a guide or a group to go with.

“They won’t go alone, I assure you,” she said. “The majority of tourists want to feel safe and Europeans are no different.”

Janis-Aparicio believes that given the proper tools--information, guidebooks, maps and access to tours and guides that will make them feel at ease in unfamiliar surroundings--even skittish American tourists may begin to see the cultural diversity of Los Angeles in a new light.

But there will always be those who can’t be persuaded.

“Culture?” chuckled Ron McAllister, a middle-aged tourist from New Holland, Penn., visiting Los Angeles with his family. “No, we’re not into that. We’re hillbillies, not yuppies. That’s just not the way we do things.”