Tourists Surpass Expectations

Despite a drop-off in tourism after Sept. 11 and gloomy outlooks for visitors to Los Angeles and Orange counties for all of 2001, more tourists came and spent last year than officials initially forecast.

The final tally for Orange County showed a 1.7% increase in visitor attendance over 2000--an improvement over the 5% decline officials were bracing for immediately after the terrorist attacks.

For an area that had staked billions on remaking itself for tourism and was headed toward a record year for visitors before Sept. 11, the numbers are being regarded as a sign that “the worst is over,” said Charles Ahlers, president of the Anaheim/Orange County Visitor & Convention Bureau.

“Things were not looking good there in the beginning. Not good at all,” he said. “But with these numbers ... we’re hopeful even better things are in store for us in 2002.”

About 41 million visitors to Orange County spent $6.5 billion last year--about the same dollar amount as 2000, according to Skip Hull, director of CIC Research, which tracks tourism statistics for visitor bureaus.

But there was a 5% increase in the number of day visitors to Orange County, as families chose shorter trips over longer, more expensive overnight stays. Of the total visitors to Orange County, 22.7million were day trips, Hull said. A day visitor is someone who does not live or work in the county and who does not stay overnight.

The numbers give hope to such places as Disneyland Resort, which incurred dips in attendance at the end of last year but has since shown steady increases and solid crowds. Several attractions slated to open this fall at theme park California Adventure stand to further boost attendance, which has been off an average of 10,000 a day or more since opening last February.

In L.A. County, the 1.8% drop in overall visitors last year was much easier to shoulder than the 5% decrease officials anticipated after Sept. 11, said David Sheatsley, research director for the Los Angeles Convention & Visitors Bureau.

About 23.8 million visitors spent nearly $12 billion in Los Angeles last year. That visitor number represents international and overnight visitors only and excludes day trips by L.A.’s 9.4 million residents. If day trips were included, Sheatsley said, the number would approach 50 million visitors.

“Basically, we did far better than we thought we would in terms of visitors,” he said. “But the drop in visitor spending was larger than we were anticipating.”

That drop is being attributed largely to the decline in international tourists after Sept. 11. Foreign tourists made up more than a fifth of L.A. visitors in 2000 and accounted for 32% of tourist spending, or about $4.4 billion. After the terrorist attacks, overseas travel to L.A. fell by half and still has not recovered fully, officials said.