A LOS ANGELES TIMES - FINANCIAL TIMES SPECIAL REPORT : The Next California--The State's Economy in the Year 2000 : The Next California / HOLLYWOOD AND TECHNOLOGY : Welcome to Siliwood : What Happens to the Real Thing When Techno-Tourism Takes Hold?

A LOS ANGELES TIMES - FINANCIAL TIMES SPECIAL REPORT : The Next California--The State’s Economy in the Year 2000 : The Next California / HOLLYWOOD AND TECHNOLOGY : Welcome to Siliwood : What Happens to the Real Thing When Techno-Tourism Takes Hold?

By NANCY RIVERA BROOKS

Sept. 12, 1995 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

In a future when fun will be increasingly cyber, virtual or morphinominal, recreational may mean technological too. We’re talking techno-tourism.

But while technology will surely add some zing to California’s huge and competitive tourism industry, there is a danger: What if virtual tourism reduces actual tourism?

Still, technology’s march is relentless. Techno-tourism is already happening, experts say:

* Disneyland is enjoying greatly improved attendance thanks to its new Indiana Jones Adventure attraction, a state-of-the-art thrill ride that varies with each trip.

* Universal Studios Hollywood is feverishly working on a high-tech water ride based on the 1993 hit dinosaur movie “Jurassic Park.”

* For a hot date, the hipper-than-thou are visiting Virtual World, a chain of virtual reality arcades where customers can engage in 30th-Century war on the planet Solara 7.

Unveiling a flashy new attraction has become an annual ritual among theme parks, and woe to the park that doesn’t have something new to offer visitors, said John C. Heinritz, marketing vice president for the Los Angeles Convention & Visitors Bureau.

“The theme parks certainly believe that they have to have something new coming on-line every year to get the local residents coming back even more than the international visitors,” Heinritz said.

Advanced technology could help local theme parks, which are constrained in their expansion plans, pack more and better attractions in a smaller space, said Jack Kyser, chief economist of the Economic Development Corp. of Los Angeles County.

“As the technology gets more and more sophisticated, you’re going to have a lot of wild rides,” Kyser said.

Heinritz foresees a time when each tourist destination will have its own “home page” where Internet surfers will be able to find out about, among other things, surf conditions in the real world.

Kyser doesn’t think technology will end up hurting the state’s tourism industry, even if entrepreneurs someday become capable of re-creating the thrills of leaving home in a virtual reality arcade or a digital theme park in the tourists’ own hometowns.

Tourists “still want to see the footprints in the courtyard at Mann’s, still want to see Beverly Hills, still want to maybe see a movie star,” Kyser said. “They still need that real-world experience.”