Theme Parks Hoping for Smooth Ride Through Slump

Like children wriggling in their seats on the last day of school, amusement park executives are anxiously awaiting summer and the hordes of visitors they still think will show up despite the slowing economy.

Walt Disney Co.’s new California Adventure theme park, which opened amid much fanfare two months ago, is especially in need of a big summer. The $1.4-billion park, completed at the tail end of a booming economy, has been touted as Southern California’s newest treasure, and its performance is widely considered to be a harbinger of the industry’s health as a whole.

But even now, as some 2 million students in Los Angeles and Orange counties are out of school--some last week, some this week--an average of only 15,000 visitors are coming through the gates each day, or less than half the new park’s original estimate, sources said.

“February was just terrible. We’ve had terrible weather ever since,” said Disney spokesman Ray Gomez. “But things are finally picking up and we feel good about summer. Our bookings look strong. . . . Everything is pointing to a strong season.”

Indeed, though the weather and a tough economy are putting tourism into a slump, theme park operators are expecting to escape general economic woes and the current sluggishness as they turn this summer to their staple supply of patrons: people who live within a day’s drive of the parks.

With an unprecedented number of new attractions beckoning them, many families look to regional theme parks as a less expensive alternative to other vacations during an economic slowdown, experts said.

“What good’s a dad if he can’t take his kids to an amusement park once a year in the summertime?” said Tim O’Brien, a senior editor of Amusement Business, which tracks attendance and other industry trends. “Parks are recession resilient. People just don’t want to cut back here.”

Travel agents said they are beginning to see evidence that families are cutting back on travel plans. Bookings for cruises, trips to Europe and resort vacations are all down, which probably explains the recent drop in air fares, agents said.

In a 24-hour period last week, for example, a round-trip ticket from Los Angeles to Orlando dropped nearly $100 to $230, said Lawrence Simon of Mission Bell Travel in Mission Viejo.

“Everything is unbelievably cheap right now,” said Simon, who expects last-minute bookings to replace the longer, more involved trips this summer. “Spring has been fairly busy so far, but not nearly like it usually is. We have many people who simply aren’t making reservations like they normally would. They’re waiting to see where their money is.”

Amusement parks usually have benefited from this kind of travel trend, officials said, because attendance figures are boosted by local visitors. Six Flags, for example, estimates that at least 90% of its visitors drive from within a 150-mile radius of its 32 parks nationwide. Disneyland puts that number at roughly 70%, and Disney World gets half its patrons from nearby areas, executives said.

Overall, industry experts said, theme park attendance could grow by 5% this summer.

“We don’t expect the economy or anything else to affect us,” said Amy Means, a spokeswoman for Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia. “We have three new coasters opening this summer, which will give us more than any other park in the world. It’d have to be one heck of a great depression to keep people away from here.”

Theme parks do not release attendance figures for competitive reasons, but executives at most parks said they are satisfied with their numbers--particularly in light of the weather. So far this year, more than 16 inches of rain, or twice the usual amount, has fallen in Los Angeles. Temperatures, too, have dipped and held at about 60 degrees, compared with the 72-degree weather typical for this time of year.

“All of the West Coast parks have been getting hammered by the weather,” O’Brien said. “It’s not an economy thing. It’s not a product thing. But if the end of June rolls around and everybody’s still asking where all the crowds are at California Adventure, I’ll be saying they have a problem.”

Still, many visitors to the much-hyped Disney park said they doubt it will enjoy the same protection from economic tides that other parks might. Since its Feb. 8 opening, California Adventure has struggled to top 20,000 visitors in one day, while Disneyland’s attendance has remained strong.

According to figures obtained by The Times, the new park is boosting overall attendance at the resort by a small percentage. Last weekend at Disneyland, for example, roughly 30,000 visitors braved the rain Saturday and 46,000 showed up Sunday--a slight dip compared with a year ago.

In sharp contrast, California Adventure drew 9,000 people Saturday and 15,000 Sunday. Attendance picked up toward the end of last week, and officials say they expect more crowds to materialize this week, when the majority of students are off.

“Spring break has been different this year, because for schools in other states it started in mid-March,” Gomez said. “It’s typically busiest the week leading up to Easter Sunday.”

But if the views of some patrons ring true, it’s not the weather or the economy that is keeping the numbers low.

“There’s just not much to do around here,” said Lindsey Snyder, who traveled to Anaheim from Ohio last weekend with her husband and three children. “It’s not so much the weather, it’s the park itself. There’s no magic here. And there’s certainly nothing for my 3-year-old to do.”

Such sentiment has left park executives scrambling to appease disappointed visitors. On March 31, so many visitors flooded the guest relations department with complaints that employees handed out more than 1,500 complimentary tickets good for either park at any time within two years.

“We just want to go back to Disneyland,” said Manny Avila, a Seattle resident who checked out California Adventure last week with his son, 10-year-old Miguel. By 2 p.m., Avila said, they had experienced all the attractions at least once, with the exception of two rides that were not running.

“The lines are nice, that’s a good thing. But we’re done already. All this for 43 bucks? I don’t think so,” Avila said.

If history is any indication, industry observers said, California Adventure will have to hustle from now on to attract visitors and keep them coming. A new park’s initial splash typically lasts the first year, but by the second year there is a drop-off in attendance.

California Adventure “should be about ready to hit,” O’Brien said. “And we should see the doors blown off.”

Competitors, too, should be a bit worried. Hoping to feed off the frenzy created by the new park, Universal Studios, for instance, has a free shuttle from Anaheim to the park in Los Angeles for visitors who buy tickets to the studios. They also have an admission offer that lets a child in free with every paying adult.

In San Diego, SeaWorld is hoping for record crowds because it began offering a yearlong pass for the price of one ticket. Like California Adventure, SeaWorld’s capacity is about 30,000.

And nearby Knott’s Berry Farm is hoping for a natural spillover of Anaheim visitors. On Friday, Knott’s opened its Soak City U.S.A. water park for the second season, and spokeswoman Dana Hammondtree said the park expects more visitors staying longer at Disneyland hotels to “wander over” to Knott’s.

That was precisely the plan for Susan Jacobson and her husband, Shawn, who brought their two children from Scottsdale, Ariz., last week for the family’s biennial trip to Anaheim. Staying for four days at the new Grand Californian Hotel, the Jacobsons said they planned to go to Knott’s Berry Farm for the first time.

“We’ve never gone there because we’ve never stayed so long, and usually there was just Disneyland to see,” Susan Jacobson said. “Now we have time to check it out. We heard they have more roller coasters over there.”

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Times staff writer E. Scott Reckard contributed to this report.

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Bumpy Ride

Last year the top 10 amusement parks nationwide posted modest gains. With a slowing economy this year, they may not do as well, but they still expect summer figures to rise as much as 5% from last summer’s. Last year’s attendance:

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Attendance Park, state (millions) Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World, Florida 15.4 Disneyland, California 13.9 Epcot at Walt Disney World, Florida 10.6 Disney-MGM Studios at Walt Disney World, Florida 8.9 Animal Kingdom at Walt Disney World, Florida 8.3 Universal Studios, Florida 8.1 Universal’s Islands of Adventure, Florida 6.0 Universal Studios, California 5.2 SeaWorld, Florida 5.2 Busch Gardens, Florida 5.0

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Source: Amusement Business magazine