Show Me the Culture : Grant Helps Launch Program to Promote Themed Itineraries

The National Endowment for the Arts on Tuesday granted $150,000 to a pilot California project designed to be a national model for how to lure tourists and their spending money on a cultural journey.

The California Cultural Tourism Initiative, which will be formally unveiled at a conference in Los Angeles later this month, is part of one of the newest trends in the travel industry.

Promoters of cultural tourism seek to marry art and commerce for the good of both, said Laura Zucker, executive director of the Los Angeles County Music and Performing Arts Commission, which is a member of the coalition behind the initiative.

“We have put something together that is way out in front of what anyone else is doing in cultural tourism today,” Zucker said. The NEA provided the money because the initiative is seen as a national model for setting up this kind of hybrid program, she said. The coalition has to raise an additional $450,000 under the terms of the grant.

The three cities involved in the project, Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego, are developing 16 themed cultural itineraries covering three to five days in each region. The suggested trips will be printed in brochures and distributed to tour packagers, travel agents and individuals, said Robert Barrett, director of cultural tourism for the Los Angeles Convention & Visitors Bureau. The aim is to lengthen visitor stays in California, which would translate into increased spending and revenues for the state, the travel industry and arts organizations, he said.

“The hidden message is you’ve got to come again and again and again to California,” Barrett said.

The itineraries are being set up with community input--the Los Angeles committees include nearly 350 volunteers--and will contain the familiar and the esoteric, Barrett said. Itineraries will focus on such things as Latino heritage, Jewish heritage, Japanese American heritage, African American heritage, the car culture, gay and lesbian culture, cutting-edge art, the printed word, architecture and family cultural adventures.

“If you’re coming to Southern California and you’re interested in Jewish heritage, for example, you can pick up any piece of this itinerary” for ideas on things to do, Zucker said.

One stop on the Latino heritage tour will be Self Help Graphics, a nonprofit art gallery and workshop in East Los Angeles.

“We think it’s appropriate and timely to be included in something like this,” said Tomas Benitez, assistant director of Self Help, which showcases a broad range of Latino art. “This very unique cultural experience is part of the American fabric.”

The coalition behind the cultural tourism initiative involves players from both the tourism and art worlds, including the visitor bureaus from the three cities (which employ three of the only four cultural tourism directors in the nation), state and local arts officials, the California Division of Tourism and the Hyatt hotel chain.

The coalition is seeking other corporate partners for the campaign, which will cost between $800,000 and $1 million and will distribute more than 3 million pieces of literature in English, Spanish, Japanese and German starting next winter. Coalition members will present a case study on the initiative at a forum on cultural tourism March 19-21 at the Hyatt Regency Los Angeles.

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Business Travel Costs Climb:

Traveling to Los Angeles on business has gotten more expensive--27.1% more expensive to be exact.

Business travelers to Los Angeles will spend an average of $287.53 a day for lodging, meals and an intermediate-size rental car this year, up $61.03 from 1996, according to the Rochester (N.Y.) Institute of Technology’s Corporate Travel Index.

The index, which has been compiled for 12 years by graduate students from the university’s food, hotel and travel management program, is designed to help corporate travel planners set spending guidelines. The index is based on surveys of hotels, restaurants and car rental agencies in the 100 largest metropolitan areas.

The index showed a national increase of 5.9%, reflecting a 13.3% jump in hotel rates, a 5.3% increase in meal expenses and a 5.9% decrease in rental car rates.

Average daily expenses in Los Angeles include $162.41 for a hotel room, up from $104.57 last year; $77.64 for three meals, up from $72.17; and $47.48 for a rental car, down from $49.46 last year.

New York was the most expensive city at $406.34 per day, followed by Washington, Boston and Chicago. Los Angeles ranked fifth.

Times staff writer Nancy Rivera Brooks can be reached via e-mail at nancy.rivera.brooks@latimes.com or by fax at (213) 237-7837.

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Culture by Category

The California Cultural Tourism Initiative is developing itineraries, based on the following themes, that tourists can follow to experience the well-known and the esoteric:

* African American heritage

* Architecture, design, urban renewal, public art and gardens

* Car culture and transportation

* Contemporary art

* Culture on the edge

* Family cultural adventures

* Gay and lesbian culture

* Japanese American heritage

* Jazz and blues

* Jewish heritage

* Latino heritage

* Major cultural institutions and museums

* Natural history and science

* Printed word

* Theater and dance

* Western heritage, including Native American culture