Travel Tidbits

Hotel occupancy was 75.48% in Los Angeles for the first nine months of the year, up 3.7% from the same period of 1996, according to PKF Consulting. The average daily room rate rose 7.9% to $96.77. . . . Los Angeles Convention & Visitors Bureau President George Kirkland has been named national chairman of the Travel Industry Assn. . . . Domestic and international tourists spend more in California than any other state, according to the Tourism Works for America Council. Travelers spent $58.3 billion in California in 1995, the latest year for which comparable data is available from all 50 states. Florida was second with $42.9 billion and New York was third at $29.5 billion. California also had the most tourism-related jobs at 804,800. . . . AAA predicts that leisure auto travel will rise nearly 3% next year and that the Ontario Mills outlet mall in San Bernardino County will approach Disneyland as the state’s biggest tourist attraction.

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