Disney Visiting Schools to Seek New Workers

Walt Disney Co. officials say that despite the tight job market they expect little trouble filling the 7,000 new jobs created by the company’s expansion in Anaheim. Perhaps that’s because they’re looking so hard for prospects.

Disney recruiters, joined by city staffers, are using a bus to visit college campuses, promoting the new California Adventure theme park set to open Feb. 8 and looking for fresh faces to staff it. Much of the time is spent educating prospects about Anaheim’s growth, which also includes a $177 million expansion of the Convention Center.

“It’s amazing how many people there are who don’t know the Anaheim Resort is being built,” said city spokesman Bret Colson. “A lot of these college students don’t have any idea of the magnitude of it.”

Disney, Knott’s and the Marriott and Hilton convention hotels in Anaheim plan to help the Anaheim/Orange County Visitor & Convention Bureau promote the area to another audience: business and leisure travelers on the Eastern seaboard.

The tentative plan is to place a four-page advertising supplement in USA Today’s travel pages on a Friday in January, for distribution in Washington, D.C., Virginia, Maryland and Philadelphia. “We’ve done some consumer advertising in the West before,” said bureau president Charles W. Ahlers. “But this is the first time in the East.”

Part of the ad budget will come out of $1 million the city of Anaheim has loaned the bureau for special promotions of the Disney and Convention Center expansions.

E. Scott Reckard covers tourism for The Times. He can be reached at (714) 966-7407 and at scott.reckard@latimes.com.