World Cup fails to score in Southland hotel bookings.

Hoteliers scramble to fill rooms set aside for event

Bookings at Los Angeles hotels for the World Cup -- the soccer mega-event that was supposed to be a gold mine for struggling local hoteliers -- are well under original expectations.

The lower-than-expected bookings have sent hotel operators scrambling to fill space once set aside for attendees of the worldwide tournament. The tournament will be held in the United States from mid-June to July 17, with eight of the 52 games, including the final championship match, played at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena.

Local operators, as well as industry experts and analysts, said hotel bookings for the event have been about half of what was expected when space was reserved by the World Cup organizing committee two years ago.

Because World Cup USA 1994 Inc., the Century City-based organizing committee, blocked off too many rooms, hotels are now hunting for business to fill the space, said local operators and industry experts.

They said a key reason the rooms have not been filled is that preliminary games scheduled for the Rose Bowl do not feature national teams with worldwide followings. In addition, the teams do not represent countries where many people can afford to travel overseas to watch the games.

The first local game will be June 18 and will feature Colombia vs. Romania, and the second game will be on June 19 between Cameroon nd Sweden. The U.S. team plays Colombia on June 22 and Romania on June 26 at the Rose Bowl.

John Parker, director of marketing for the accommodations bureau of World Cup USA, said hotels have had plenty of time to fill the space that was set aside by the committee but has since been released back to individual properties. But he also acknowledged that hotel bookings in the early rounds of the tournament in Pasadena have not met expectations.

He said he could not say how the lower-than-expected bookings will affect the value of the tournament to the local economy. According to World Cup USA, the eight-game schedule was supposed to generate about $622 million in business in the Los Angeles area.

Parker also said he could not detail how many rooms had been set aside at more than 70 area hotels for the World Cup, and how many of those rooms had actually been booked.

The Business Journal contacted several hotels in Pasadena, Glendale and downtown Los Angeles and only one said it expects to be sold out for the entire month-long World Cup period. That was the Doubletree in Pasadena, a 350-room hotel within walking distance of the Rose Bowl.

But Eve Helms, director of marketing at the Doubletree, said the hotel expects to be sold out primarily because of its location. She said actual bookings, however, were far less than what had been reserved at the hotel by the organizing committee.

The hotel, she said, has been able to make up the difference by selling space on its own rather than depending on bookings from the organizing committee.

"Our location has really helped us. We are the closest hotel to the Rose Bowl. But I was surprised and shocked that the space wasn't grabbed up. I think that if the game matchups had been with teams from Mexico or Italy, it might have been better," said Helms.

Janet Waldie, director of sales and marketing at the Red Lion Hotel in Glendale, said last week only about 40 percent of the space reserved by the organizing committee had been booked.

Like other hotels, Waldie said, the 348-room Red Lion is sold out for the semifinal and final games but there is space available for the early matches.

"What we're trying to do now is fill the space that had been reserved for the World Cup. I expect we will fill the space up with our regular customers rather than the World Cup," said Waldie. The Red Lion is about five miles from the Rose Bowl.

At another Pasadena property, the luxury Ritz-Carlton Huntington Hotel, a spokeswoman said World Cup-generated business had not met expectations.

"We are seeing some good business out of it but it's not what we thought it would be," said spokeswoman Landry Kimbrough. She declined to be more specific.

The process of reserving space began more than two years ago when cities bidding for World Cup games had to guarantee hotel rooms. In order for Los Angeles to win a bid, the organizing committee had to reserve a certain number of hotel rooms, which then would be filled with bookings made by the committee's accommodations bureau.

According to Parker, the committee began canceling those reservations on Dec. 31, 1993. The latest in the series of cancellations occurred on May 15, and more rooms will be turned back over to the individual properties just before the tournament starts, said Parker.

Linda Brown, executive director of the Pasadena Convention and Visitors Bureau, said the agency is disappointed the World Cup has not produced more business for local hotels.

"But what you should remember here is the long-term benefit of this," she said. "We are getting and will receive worldwide, free media exposure. Having the final games here is an unbelievable opportunity to showcase our community and Southern California to the world."