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ANAHEIM -- When the doors swung open July 14 on the Anaheim Convention Center's third expansion, managers of the Los Angeles Convention Center had to be a little jealous.
With 835,000 square feet of convention space now available and an arena that holds 10,000 visitors, the Anaheim facility secured its position as the largest convention center on the West Coast. And, perhaps more blissfully, Anaheim left its perennial rivals in downtown Los Angeles a little deeper in the dust.
In 1989, 1.6 million convention delegates descended on Orange County, holding 326 meetings and conventions and spending $1.1 billion, said Elaine Cali, communications director for the Anaheim Visitor and Convention Bureau. Cali estimates that 80% of the county's convention business was conducted in Anaheim.
"Anaheim is certainly in the top two," said Chris Yoshii, a consultant with Economics Research Associates, a real estate consulting firm that has been conducting studies of the meeting and convention market since 1983.
"More convention people will go to a convention if it's in Anaheim, because it's in a good location."
Yoshii said San Francisco, San Diego and Anaheim are some of the best convention sites in the country, with Las Vegas being a greater draw for large conventions.
"Los Angeles has fairly decent facilities, but its image as a vacation destination is unfavorable," Yoshii said. "LA is perceived as an unsafe and unfriendly area."
For the second year in a row, Orange County broke the 1 million-mark in the number of convention attendees, Cali said.
In comparison, an estimated 720,000 people attended meetings and conventions in Los Angeles in 1989, said Roger Badle,...