When Lois Green, who lives in Dallas, offered her daughter Ava to her 16th Disneyland.
This wasn’t a budget vacation. They booked an expensive VIP tour of the Anaheim theme park – starting at around $ 3,000 a day – and stayed at the swanky Dream Hotel in Hollywood, where room rates go up to $ 439.
“I didn’t hold back my checkbook on this trip,” said Green as she, her daughter, and a friend dined at the Dream Hotel’s rooftop restaurant. “We’re really spoiling each other.”
Hollywood is enjoying a surge in US visitors like Green, who let off steam with high-end digs, souvenirs, food, and attractions with big tickets. This is good news for Hollywood business owners who have lost the revenue of high-spending international travelers due to pandemic travel restrictions.
The loss was substantial: international visitors such as those from Europe or China spend an average of $ 4,200 per visit to the US, while American tourists spend much less – around $ 600 – per trip.
But that could change. Business owners say they see U.S. tourists with large bank accounts that they attribute to more than a year postponed travel and government incentive funds. Many travelers were given the green light to visit when California lifted most of the pandemic restrictions and reopened and lifted capacity limits at theme parks, beaches and restaurants in June.
“I think Americans are just happy to leave the house,” said Jen Ryan, general manager of Funko, a toy and collectors store on Hollywood Boulevard, where sales are above pre-pandemic levels.
Between April and June, pedestrian traffic on Hollywood Boulevard rose by as much as 153%, according to a study by the Hollywood Partnership, a business improvement program for shops along the boulevard. Hotel occupancy in the Hollywood / Beverly Hills area rose from 52% in April to 72% in July, according to STR, a global hospitality data and analytics company.
Approximately 95% of Hollywood visitors are now from the US, with only 5% representing international travelers such as tourists from Canada and Mexico, said Kristopher Larson, president of the Hollywood Partnership. Before the pandemic, about 15% of Hollywood visitors were international visitors who tend to stay longer and spend more on food, hotels and souvenirs, he said.
Not far from Hollywood Boulevard, business at the Dream Hotel has begun to surpass pre-pandemic levels.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Why do tourists spend their vacation money in Hollywood? Visitors mention the warm southern California weather, the beaches, a number of attractions to choose from, and the chance, slim as it is, of spotting a celebrity.
Plus, the rise in the Delta variant in some countries has made traveling abroad a lot more risky than staying locally. Although many countries, including most of Europe, have reopened to Americans, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are warning not to visit until travelers are fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Also, Americans returning from abroad must first present a negative coronavirus test done in the past three days.
A Michigan music buff, John Napoletano, stopped by the Madame Tussauds Museum recently to see the wax figures of Clint Eastwood, Paul Newman and Robert Redford.
He said his two-day visit would include stops at Venice Beach, the Hollywood Sign, Whiskey a Go Go nightclub, and the Capitol Records building.
“I’ve wanted to come here for years,” he said before going to examine the hand and footprints of movie legends on the sidewalk outside the TCL Chinese Theater. “There is so much to do.”
Larson and Hollywood business owners say the surge in domestic traveler spending has made Hollywood’s tourism industry thriving for now.
“Everyone lives their best life,” said Vaughn Davis, general manager of Dream Hotel, where occupancy has peaked at 85% and food and beverage revenues have started to surpass pre-pandemic numbers. “They just want to have fun.”
Tourists visiting the Madame Tussauds Hollywood Museum will get up close and personal with the wax figures of Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
At the Madame Tussauds wax museum next to the TCL Chinese Theater, demand has surpassed 2019 levels and “just keeps rising,” with most visitors from San Diego, the San Francisco Bay Area and Mexico, said Helen Larimore, the museum’s marketing manager declined to announce attendance numbers.
Since Amoeba Music moved from Sunset Boulevard to a new location on Hollywood Boulevard in April, the store has surpassed pre-pandemic levels, thanks largely to tourist traffic from the Walk of Fame, said Melissa Logan, senior manager of the famous record store.
The tourists laden with sacks of souvenirs are not skimpy on buying records, posters and T-shirts, she said.
“They buy what they want,” said Logan. “I think people have been locked up for a year and they’re doing it now.”
Streams of tourists shuffled down the Walk of Fame on Hollywood Boulevard last week, taking photos of celebrity plaques set in the sidewalk, dodging CD dealers and posing for photos with people in superhero costumes.
Tourists view star handprints and signatures at the TCL Chinese Theater on Hollywood Boulevard.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Tour buses and shuttle vans paced the curbs, offering tours of celebrity homes, the Hollywood sign, and other iconic landmarks.
Starline Tours, once the largest coach company in Los Angeles, operates seven double-decker buses and seven smaller vans on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, with fewer vehicles the rest of the week. The drivers and passengers wear masks during the tours. Before the pandemic, Starline operated up to 24 double-decker buses and at least 16 vans a day for celebrities traveling home.
Starline chairman Kami Farhadi said private tours have become increasingly popular with his customers, about 95% of whom are from the United States
“Business conditions look cheap in the short term,” he said. “In the long term, we all depend on the vast majority of the US population being vaccinated quickly before another variant of COVID-19 embeds.”
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