Recovery Plan Boosts Tourism
A regional recovery plan crafted to keep the Los Angeles-area economy on track appears to be working, especially in attracting more tourists than anticipated in the aftermath of Sept. 11, county and city officials said Wednesday.
“Since Sept. 11, we have been working hard to change the predicted direction for travel to Los Angeles, and we are making some headway,” said George Kirkland, president and chief executive of the Los Angeles Convention & Visitors Bureau.
He said industry analysts expected international visitors to Los Angeles would drop in 2001 by 800,000, but the actual number was closer to 650,000. Domestic tourism was forecast to decline 5%, “and in fact, the year ended with a 1.2% increase.”
On the downside, Kirkland said “spending was down due to a soft economy, shorter stays and smaller travel-party sizes.”
Kirkland and others attributed the better-than-expected results to a regional recovery plan crafted last fall at an economic summit of more than 400 business, city, county and community leaders. Among its priorities were accelerating public works projects and launching a marketing campaign to help travel and tourism. The plan also addressed a prolonged slump in manufacturing and the Internet industry and rising energy costs.
“Actions on the federal, state and through the [local level] are healing an economy that is more resilient than we first thought,” said Jack Kyser, chief economist of the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp.
Specifically, the tourism and hospitality industry was injected with $300,000 in countywide promotional funds, and three months later has helped bring in more than $3.7 million in spending by visitors, including nearly $1 million in hotel room revenues. The campaign targeted local tourists who planned to travel to the region by car, rather than fly-in travelers coming from greater distances. The result was about 7,800 room-nights sold during January and February.
Such a proactive approach to stave off more dire economic consequences was the real value of the recovery plan, Kyser said.
Assessing their plan three months later, local leaders pointed to a number of initiatives that appear to be gaining momentum, particularly cross-agency cooperation to better respond to economic downturns.
Among them is a WorkSource facility at the downtown Chicana Service Action Center. WorkSource is the name given to the new regionwide effort to help employees, such as immigrant Eng Wong, find jobs and employers find workers.
Although Wong, 57, was a chemist in Macao for 31 years, he found himself selling work clothes in Huntington Park for a year before finding his current job through WorkSource five months ago. He is now a chemist receiving training at Bocchi Laboratories in Los Angeles.
In addition to workers’ aid, the Economic Action Summit plan calls for green-lighting private sector and public works projects, and creating business assistance and retention programs.
