Talk about wild gyrations.
Just this summer, Orange County’s tourism industry was hanging on to good times, despite a softening economy.
August hotel occupancy hovered around 80% countywide, conventions were holding their own and tourists were abundant, even if they weren’t coming in the droves anticipated a year earlier.
But in the days after Sept. 11, occupancy at some hotels plummeted below 10%. Three conventions and a few small meetings scheduled the following week were canceled. Tourist traffic slowed to a trickle. Some thought it would take months,if not years,to recover.
A month later, Anaheim hotels are showing some signs of rebounding. Many are at 50% occupancy,still down, but up from the dire lows following the terrorist attacks. Another 50 conventions and meetings are set to come to the area through year’s end. And officials said there have been no further cancellations and future bookings are picking up.
That’s not to say there haven’t been repercussions. Hiring freezes, layoffs, reduced hours and reduced tax revenue have been widely reported (see related story, page 10). But in a recent industry survey conducted by Equation Research, 71% of corporate meeting buyers said they did not foresee a reduction in the number of meetings planned by their companies in the coming year.
“We are encouraged by the strong number of conventions and meetings that will be headquartered in Anaheim/Orange County through the end of the year,” said Charles Ahlers, president of the Anaheim/Orange County Visitor & Convention Bureau.
But at a recent membership meeting, Ahlers cautioned the crowd of about 300 that there’s no magic formula to restore economic well-being.
Bureau vice president of convention sales Jim Kissinger said there are 13 groups of 10,000 or more scheduled for dates through next March. These groups already have booked a total of 250,000 hotel nights and Kissinger said they could generate as much as $150 million for the local economy. In all, about 500,000 convention attendees are expected to attend about 200 different events through March.
These conventions won’t replace the 20,000 visitors,and an estimated $28 million in spending,lost in the weeks following the attacks on the U.S., but they will create business for area hotels, restaurants and other businesses suffering loss of revenue since Sept. 11.
The American Heart Association, whose convention is scheduled for early November, initially expected about 36,000 attendees. And though the organization has reduced its room blocks in some areas outside of Anaheim, as of last week some hotels were still sold out during the event.
Other conventions on the books surprisingly show few signs of weak attendance, either. The National Association for the Education of Young Children, scheduled for this week through Nov. 11, already has booked 5,000 hotel rooms, compared to a typical 6,000 rooms used by the group.
The Medical Design & Manufacturing show, slated for next February, has reported an increase in bookings from the same time last year when its attendance was about 15,000. And the National Association of Music Merchants,Anaheim’s largest convention,booked more than 7,000 rooms in the first two weeks after registration for its February event began on Sept. 28.
Tourism numbers, too, appear to be creeping back up. On the first weekend of October, Disney’s three hotels were operating at capacity, while Disneyland has seen at least a couple of mid-week days when attendance approached 50,000, according to a company source. Last year, Disneyland had about 14 million visitors, or just slightly more than 1 million per month, according to industry data.
Like other visitor bureaus, Anaheim/Orange County has retooled its marketing campaign to address the new concerns of the traveling public. A cooperative advertising campaign directed at the neighboring drive-in market is under development by Lake Forest-based Creative Lab, the bureau’s advertising agency.
The campaign is set to focus on the convenient location of this market for the leisure traveler. About 15 million Californians live within a four-hour drive of OC. For the meeting and convention markets, the emphasis will be on the resort atmosphere as well as OC’s abundance of shopping and dining venues.
For those cautiously returning to air travel, John Wayne Airport already has proved to be a popular alternative to longer lines at Los Angeles International Airport. And American Airlines earlier this month began a program dubbed “Quick Ticket” through which consumers can get discounts of up to 20% on group and meeting fares. The program is the outgrowth of a partnership begun last year between the airline and the bureau, through which groups of 10 or more can receive discounts on unrestricted coach fares to John Wayne, Ontario International or Long Beach airports. n
