Local convention business almost on hold for now: but Convention Center expansion should change things.

That Los Angeles is hurting for convention business is no secret. And this week's List reflects the dire straits of the city's ability to attract big, multiday national conventions.

On top of The List is the Society of Manufacturing Engineers convention, which could attract up to 50,000 people. The problem is that most of those people will be from Southern California and will not be staying in hotels. In addition, the organization always holds its meeting and trade show in Los Angeles.

A closer look at The List also shows that only two of the 10 largest conventions scheduled for the first half of next year will be held at the Los Angeles Convention Center; the others will be held at area hotels or the Sports Arena.

According to the Los Angeles Convention & Visitors Bureau, the only true national convention that will draw delegates for multiday stays in Los Angeles is a six-day conference of Guide International in mid-March.

But there is good news on the horizon. In two years The List may look very different than it does now -- at least, that is what bureau officials hope will happen. The Los Angeles convention industry is basically in a hold mode, waiting for the expansion and modernization of the downtown Convention Center to be completed some time in mid-1993.

When that happens, the city should be able to attract national conventions, said Mark Roysner, association vice president of convention sales at the bureau.

According to Roysner, the bureau has already been able to significantly increase its future convention bookings, based on a late summer or early fall 1993 completion of the Convention Center.

For 1992, the bureau has booked conventions that will produce 31,000 room-nights (a room-night is one person in one hotel room for one night). In 1993, room-nights are projected to increase to 74,000 and in 1994, the first full year of operations at the expanded Convention Center, room-nights are expected to jump to 208,000.

"Right now we have very few windows of opportunity for using the Convention Center because we have to work around the construction schedule, but our bookings for future conventions is going very good," Roysner said. "We are getting the big national groups that we want and (which) have in the past never considered Los Angeles because we didn't have a modern and big convention facility."

He noted that some big national conventions book conferences as much as 10 years in advance.

Right now, the bureau has 44 booked conventions compared to 11 that were reserved 18 months ago, before the start of the start of construction on the Convention Center expansion.