From Colonial Buildings to Palm Trees,
Officials Seek Ways to Boost Visitors
Westminster Councilman Tony Lam, the nation’s first Vietnamese elected official, sounds tired and a little exasperated these days.
As the elected public face of Little Saigon, he is unhappy with the slow pace of tourism development in the area. Numbers are hard to come by, but Lam said he believes the number of visitors to the area’s shops and restaurants is declining.
“Tourism in Little Saigon is at a standstill,” Lam said. “There are so many visitors to Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm nearby,we need to stand out more as a unique area to attract those people.”
Co Pham, chairman of the Vietnamese-American Chamber of Commerce in Westminster, echoes Lam’s observations.
“Things are going very slow right now,” Pham said. “There are a lot more available parking spots during a typical weekend compared to a year ago. Traffic is noticeably lighter.”
Little Saigon covers parts of Westminster, Garden Grove, Fountain Valley and Santa Ana. The area is home to more than 200,000 Vietnamese-Americans and their offspring,the largest concentration outside Vietnam.
While there are no hard figures available, officials estimate about 100,000 people a year visit Little Saigon,most of them ethnic Vietnamese.
As younger Little Saigon residents go elsewhere for entertainment, community officials have debated for years how to boost visitors. They point to Little Tokyo and Chinatown in Los Angeles as examples of what Little Saigon could be. With the expansion of the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim and an expected influx of new visitors to OC, the topic is more pertinent than ever.
But, for now, Little Saigon is more a collection of strip malls for locals than a lure for visitors.
“Little Saigon is actually very low-key now because it hasn’t been that well developed,” Pham said.
One draw for visitors could be more cultural activities, Pham said.
“It’s harder than ever before to convince people that there is something unique here to see,” he said. “There are plenty of Vietnamese soup restaurants in places like San Bernardino and Riverside, too.”
One problem the areas faces is a lack of English store signs, which can make Little Saigon seem less-than-cozy toward outsiders.
Area officials and businesspeople generally agree that Chinese-style roofs atop bus stop shelters and other trappings are nice. But something more substantial is needed to pull in visitors, especially those who do not speak Vietnamese, they say.
Lam said he wants to see more European-style development that typifies much of the older colonial layout of Vietnam’s largest cities of Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, with tree-lined streets similar to what Santa Monica offers with its Third Street Promenade area.
“We should have a visitor’s bureau and more upscale facilities; even popular mainstream fast-food outlets would help make Little Saigon look less hostile to outsiders,” he said.
Lam said he also believes a police substation with bicycle patrols similar to those in Santa Monica would help put the minds of visitors at ease, given news reports about Vietnamese gang activity and political rallies.
Lam insists the crime rate in the area has dropped more than 40% in the past three years. While the area’s overall crime rate is higher than in Irvine, it remains well below the national average for U.S. cities.
Crime isn’t the only bad rap the area gets.
“We’ve had a lot of bad media publicity over our political infighting,” Pham said. “We’re always fighting each other and protesting each other’s political activities,everyone sees that on TV and reads about it in the newspapers.”
The conflict between those in Little Saigon who want to establish closer ties with Vietnam, like Pham, and those who still see that country’s government as the enemy has created a public image of an area laden with friction and tension. Lam’s own Garden Grove restaurant was picketed in a political flap two years ago.
Both Pham and Lam said they believe the area’s residents shouldn’t have to carry the tourism ball by themselves. Pham said he wants to see Westminster and the county do more to bolster the area’s tourism.
“Little Saigon definitely needs a helping hand in getting things rolling in the right direction,” Lam said. “We’ve been talking for a long time, but nothing has materialized.”
The area should be presented as unique and modern, Pham argued. He said he wants to see Westminster upgrade the Bolsa Avenue corridor that runs through the center of Little Saigon.
“The city has been talking a lot about improving the area,they have been talking, talking and talking about it for 10 years, but they have not actually spent any money to improve the image of Little Saigon,” he said.
Westminster Mayor Marjorie Wright is undertaking a program to help revitalize the area’s sagging tourist sector, according to Frank Jao, chief executive of Bridgecreek Realty Investment Corp.
“Things have been a little slow, and there have been more words than action,” Jao said. Bridgecreek, a Westminster developer, rents out as much as half of all the businesses space in Little Saigon.
Westminster’s new economic development manager, Steve Soto, said he’s collecting input from local business owners.
“I’m hearing from the tenants that tourism could be as successful as it was five years ago,” said Soto. “But that it’s going to need a big infusion to get it there.”
For his part, Jao said his company is adding hundreds of new parking stalls to the Asian Garden Mall, as well as online maps of Little Saigon that will help tourists find their way around the area.
“We’re working to attract more non-Asian shoppers to the area,” Jao said. n
