When Karl Sanger attended a travel industry trade show in Las Vegas in June, he set up shop in the booth maintained by the Long Beach Visitors and Convention Bureau, the people who try to attract tourists to Long Beach.
But Sanger wasn't promoting Long Beach.
He was promoting San Pedro.
As director of sales for the newly built Compri Hotel at the Cabrillo Marina, Sanger aimed to persuade tour operators that San Pedro would make a fine base for visitors who want to explore Southern California. And he had some success; a British travel agent contracted for 3,600 room nights at the 226-room Compri.
Day Trips From Hotel
The British travelers will spend seven nights at the Compri. From there, they will take day trips to Disneyland, Universal Studios and other tourist hot spots. Said Sanger: "(The tour operator) has been putting his people in Anaheim or he's been putting his people in downtown Los Angeles, and now he's going to put them here."
Sanger's experience in Las Vegas illustrates two truths about San Pedro's fledgling tourism trade. First is that the business is in its infancy--so new that Sanger was compelled to ally himself with nearby Long Beach, which boasts such nationally known attractions as the Spruce Goose and Queen Mary.
But second--and, San Pedro business leaders say, more important--is the potential for San Pedro to become a tourist destination, rather than a quick stopping point.
European Ethnic Flavor
With a string of its own waterfront attractions--Ports O' Call Village, the World Cruise Center at the Port of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Maritime Museum and Cabrillo Marine Museum, among others--plus a European ethnic flavor that is rare in other Southern California communities, San Pedro already attracts hundreds of thousands of day-trippers each year. Many know San Pedro as the point of embarkation for Catalina Island, Mexico and Alaska, among other destinations.
And with the new Compri, as well as a 232-room Sheraton Hotel under construction downtown and plans for a cruise center hotel under consideration by port officials, San Pedro will have plenty of room to house those visitors.
"Tourism is a very viable (economic) alternative which has not been tapped in San Pedro," said Leron Gubler, executive director of the San Pedro Peninsula Chamber of Commerce.
