Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti touts record…
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti touts record traffic arriving at LAX, growth in tourism
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Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti held a news conference at LAX's Tom Bradley International Terminal to discuss the state of tourism in the cityTuesday, January 06, 2015, Los Angeles, CA. In 2014, 43.4 million people made Los Angeles their destination which is a record. Many of these people came through LAX which has been expanding to handle the influx. Photo by Steve McCrank/Staff Photographer
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti held a news conference at LAX's Tom Bradley International Terminal to discuss the state of tourism in the cityTuesday, January 06, 2015, Los Angeles, CA. In 2014, 43.4 million people made Los Angeles their destination which is a record. Many of these people came through LAX which has been expanding to handle the influx. The conference was held under the terminal's new architecture and at four new gates. Photo by Steve McCrank/Staff Photographer
By Jordan England-Nelson | jordan.england-nelson@langnews.com |
Passenger volume at Los Angeles International Airport set an all-time high in 2014, fueled by a fourth-straight year of record tourism in a region that finally appears to be bouncing back from the recession.
At a news conference Tuesday at LAX, city officials said 43.4 million people visited Los Angeles in 2014. In total, 71 million passengers came through the airport last year, beating the 67.3 million record in 2000.
Mayor Eric Garcetti noted the Tom Bradley International Terminal is undergoing a $7 billion renovation, the largest public works project in the city's history. Four new boarding gates are now operational at the Bradley terminal, making a total of 12 new gates in service. Construction is continuing on six more.
In addition, the city is spending $2 billion to extend the Crenshaw/LAX Metro Line to the airport. That project, he said, will "correct a huge mistake of the past" by helping passengers get from LAX to the city by rail.
"This is a competition," Garcetti said. "If we aren't out there hustling, people will go someplace else.
"The continuing, record-breaking growth and strength of tourism in Los Angeles is a shining light for our economy, creating good-paying jobs for our families, benefiting local businesses and generating significant revenue for the city that goes toward the public services our city needs."
Last year was the city's busiest for international tourism, which accounted for 15 percent of visitors. Within that figure, Chinese tourism is up 20 percent and Korean and Japanese tourism is up about 7 percent each, officials said.
The tourism industry brought in $18.4 billion in 2013 and supports about 442,000 jobs in the Los Angeles area, officials said.
"Angelenos should be proud that our great city is such a desired tourist destination for visitors from across the U.S. and around the world," Garcetti said.
Hotels, which broke a city record last year with an average 79 percent occupancy rate, brought in $184 million in tax revenues in fiscal 2013-14. The previous record was 75.1 percent occupancy in 2006.
"There's no doubt that demand is exceeding the supply of hotel rooms that we have right now," said Ernest Wooden, president of the Los Angeles Tourism & Convention Board.
The city is looking for investors to build 4,000 additional hotel rooms, especially near the L.A. Convention Center, Wooden said.
Garcetti and several city council members, including Mike Bonin, whose 11th district includes LAX, made a 12-day trip to China, Korea and Japan in November to encourage tourism and investment in Los Angeles. The three Asian countries are L.A.'s biggest trading partners.
The trip cost $570,000, more than two-thirds of which was covered by the Port of Los Angeles and Los Angeles World Airports.
William Deverell, a Los Angeles historian at USC who has studied the city's tourism industry, attributed the rise in Chinese tourists to that country's economic growth as well as ties to Chinese-American relatives.
Their encouragement probably far outweighs the "top down" efforts to increase tourism in Los Angeles, Deverell said. Of course, world-renown points of interest are also part of the draw.
"Disneyland doesn't need the mayor of Los Angeles to promote Disneyland," Deverell said. "It's a very well-known commodity."
City News Service contributed to this report.
Jordan England-Nelson
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