By Hugo
Martín
April 23, 2014, 5:00 a.m.
In the battle for tourists, Los Angeles is
losing ground to rivals Orlando, Fla., New York, and Chicago.
L.A. County has broken its own record for annual
visitors three years in a row — thanks to a rebounding economy, sunny
California weather and popular tourist attractions.
But L.A.'s tourist numbers are not growing fast
enough to keep up with the nation's top three destinations, primarily because
the city lacks enough hotel rooms to host more tourists.
"We have an awful lot of things that are in
our favor," said Robert Kleinhenz, chief economist at the Los Angeles
County Economic Development Corp.
"But one big constraint I've seen in the
last several years is that we don't have enough rooms in the vicinity of the
convention center."
Kleinhenz and tourist industry officials closely
follow visitation numbers for good reason.
Visitors to Los Angeles County booked 26.6
million room nights in 2012, spent about $16.5 billion and supported 324,000
jobs in the region, according to the Los Angeles Tourism & Convention
Board.
Tourism has surged nationwide, thanks to a
recovering U.S. economy and an influx of middle-class foreign travelers,
particularly from China, Brazil, Japan and Australia.
Tourist numbers are rising especially fast in
Chicago, New York and Orlando — so fast that those cities have recently revised
their tourist forecasts up for the next few years. Tourism leaders in those
cities attribute the growth to new efforts to promote their cities abroad, an
improving economy, and construction of new hotels to accommodate visitors.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel recently
predicted Chicago would host 55 million annual visitors by 2020, up from a
previous forecast of 50 million.
"What we are seeing is that there is a
rising tide," said Don Welsh, president
and chief executive of Choose Chicago, the city's tourism bureau.
Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has
predicted that the city would reach its goal of 55 million visitors in 2014,
one year ahead of the city's previous forecast.
For its part, Los Angeles has set a goal of 50
million visitors a year by 2020, said Ernest Wooden Jr., chief executive and
president of the Los Angeles Tourism & Convention Board.
Although Los Angeles has enjoyed a minor hotel
construction boom in the last few years, Wooden said it is not enough.
In addition to the hotels already under
construction or in planning, Los Angeles needs 2,000 to 3,000 hotel rooms
within walking distance of the downtown convention center, he said.
"The barrier is having land in downtown
that can be used for hotels," Wooden said. "The city is trying to
encourage hotel development."
But the Anschutz Entertainment Group,
the media giant that manages the convention center and owns Staples Center,
said hotels should be cautious about building too fast.
"We are pleased to see over 3,000 new
downtown hotel rooms in the pipeline, as continued growth in the supply of
hotels is needed to support convention business," said Ted Tanner, AEG's
executive vice president for real estate and development. "However, it is
important to be mindful of the pace at which new hotels are built, as the risk
of a failed project increases if new inventory comes on-line faster than it can
be absorbed into the market."
Los Angeles County is home to nearly 97,000
hotel rooms, but only 4,875 are within a mile of the convention center. The
rest are in outlying areas like Pasadena, Santa Monica and Long Beach.
By comparison, Orlando has 7,695 rooms within a
mile of its Orange
County Convention Center, and New York has nearly 30,000 within a
mile of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, according to those cities.
Chicago has 1,539 rooms within a mile of its McCormick Place Convention
Center but has 5,024 within two miles.
Copyright © 2014, Los Angeles Times
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