War interferes with bid to draw Japanese visitors to 'fun' L.A. (Up Front).

Flashy images of Hollywood celebrities will remain the weapon of choice in L.A.'s battle to draw Japanese tourists after the war in Iraq.

Even as newspapers and televisions worldwide continue to carry pictures of Americans engaged in hostilities overseas, tourism officials are putting the finishing touches on the next phase of a marketing campaign aimed at convincing the Japanese that this is a "bright, friendly and fun" place to visit.

The effort comes as tourism from Japan, L.A.'s largest source of international visitors, is at the lowest point in recent history. The effects of a weak economy at home have been exacerbated by travel fears resulting from the war and the more recent outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome.

Tourism officials estimate that last year Japanese visitors spent $225 million in L.A., down from $590 million in 1999.

To reinvigorate tourism, LA Inc., the convention and visitor's bureau, is reviving the "See My L.A." campaign that ran in Japan during January and February, only to be discontinued during the build-up to the war.

The bureau would not say how much was being spent on the campaign, which will feature celebrities Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jamie Lee Curtis and the Dodgers' Japanese pitcher Kazuhisa Ishii touting Los Angeles.

The earlier spots were developed with a $20,000 budget, with celebrities and ad agencies donating their services.

The campaign was initially designed to assuage fears stemming from the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, but it was rendered ineffectual as jitters over the war and the outbreak of SARS quashed travel plans during a key period.

Japan's "Golden Week' between April 26 and May 5, is a national holiday and one of the busiest travel periods in the country. In the past, L.A. has been a traditional destination.

This year, said Jin Hatano, director of marketing in L.A. for Tokyo-based HIS Travel, Japanese generally are staying home.

Hatano said he remained hopeful for a boost in business during Japan's other weeklong holiday, in the middle of August, by when he hopes the war will be over and SARS will be under control.

Whether the revived marketing campaign will have an impact on that period still depends largely on the state of hostilities in Iraq. It won't be launched until it's determined that Japanese media coverage of the fighting in Iraq had subsided enough to warrant a push.

Numbers plummet

The effort comes as the number of Japanese visitors is projected to dip below 400,000 this year, less than half the number of six years ago.

In 1997, nearly 850,000 Japanese came to L.A. After the terrorist attacks it had shriveled to 500,000. Overall, travel bookings from Asia for April and May are down more than 30 percent from the same time last year, the bureau reported.

The "See My L.A." campaign was announced in Tokyo last summer by Mayor James Hahn, with Schwarzenegger and LA Inc. Executive Director George Kirkland at his side, during a tour of Asia aimed at boosting tourism and business ties.

Japanese tour operators selling packaged trips to American cities seized upon the initial phase of the campaign, largely because of Schwarzenegger's popularity in Japan.

Two sweepstakes advertised during the campaign on the Japanese language version of LA Inc.'s Web site drew more than 20,000 entries each for two free tickets to L.A. for a private screening of Schwarzenegger's upcoming movie "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines" and four tickets to a Dodgers game.

"We're not eBay," said Patti MacJennet, senior vice president of international marketing at LA Inc. "That's a huge response for us."

LA Inc. still has little money to fund these efforts, so MacJennet said the agency has decided to model the post-war version of the campaign on the same principals that made "See My L.A." successful: celebrities, media placement and tour operators.

The LA Inc. effort aims to piggyback on a national effort to jump-start tourism.

Last May, Kirkland and John Marriott, executive vice president of sales and marketing for Marriott International Inc., were named to lead a group to develop a three-year plan to spur travel back to 2000 levels.

That effort is backed by the U.S. Department of Commerce and the Japan Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.

Congress appropriated $50 million in February for overseas promotional campaigns aimed at returning travel to American tourist destinations.