L.A. hotels fear Games wind-fall will be fizzer

Press, 12 May 1984, Page 10

L.A. hotels fear Games wind-fall will be fizzer

NZPA-Reuter Los Angeles Olympics officials began a campaign yesterday to persuade hotels, restaurants, and other visitor services not to raise prices during the Olympic Games — but the main concern of local companies is that the promised tourist bonanza might fizzle. The Mayor, of Los Angeles, Mr Tom Bradley, addressed several hundred representatives of the tourist industry, seeking to reassure them that the withdrawal of the Soviet Union and some of its allies from the Olympics would not mean a drastic drop in visitors. He said that the Los Angeles area could expect 600,000 visitors during the Games, which will start on

July 29. But some in his audience were sceptical. Jerry Nielsen, sales director of the Sportsmen’s Lodge Hotel, told reporters that although his hotel was still booked up for the Olympics he was expecting some cancellations. “Let’s face it, with no Soviet Union and no East Germany who is going to make the effort (to visit the Games)?” asked another hotel official. About 80 hotels in the Los Angeles area have bookings from the Olympics organisers and will not suffer it the rooms are empty. But others are worried, particularly those some distance from the city. Perle Pregler, whose company runs a resort at Laguna Beach, about 90km

south of Los Angeles, said that demand for beds had been poor even before Moscow’s boycott announcement on Wednesday. “I’ve had a call from someone in Norway and that’s it. Otherwise, zero,” Ms Pregler said. She blamed press reports that have forecast that Los Angeles will be chaotic and prices sky-high during the Games. Mr Bradley also referred to recent reports that hotels were expecting to charge up to four times their normal rates during the Games. Yesterday’s meeting was held to announce that 200 to 300 companies had pledged voluntarily not to charge abnormally high prices during the Olym-