CALIFORNIA
is to triple its travel and tourism spend to $45 million to offset a dramatic
plunge in post-September 11 visitor numbers.
Frantic
discussions are taking place between the state, the leisure industry and
individual regions to raise millions of dollars to woo back guests.
There
has been a 35% drop in numbers to the state since the terrorist attacks, with
the biggest loss in high-spending Japanese numbers.
The
vice-chairman of the California Travel and Tourism Commission, Bob Roberts,
confirmed visitor numbers had dropped by the millions.
He
said: “The Japanese visitor market just collapsed, South America was
already bad and projections of 1.1 million visitors from the UK for the year
will not happen. We will be aggressive in all markets with the new
budget.”
However,
Roberts said the main focus of a huge 2002 promotion will be focused on regions
like the UK, Germany and other European countries as their citizens are more
likely to return next year than Asian or Latin American guests.
Roberts
could not say what California’s normal visitor numbers were as he said it was
difficult to quantify, but he conceded that all markets were down and it would
be at least the third quarter of next year before hotels saw occupancy return
to pre-September levels.
California’s
current budget of $15 million is made up of half from the state and half from
the travel industry, but talks are ongoing to treble this by involving
individual suffering cities like San Francisco more and receiving more from the
state’s coffers.
Roberts
said more would be spent on overseas promotions, including advertising, films
and brochures. Domestic spend would also be greatly increased.
He also said talks were ongoing with all sectors to
address the loss of 20% of the state’s tourism staff – a drop of around 200,000
workers.