If downtown Los Angeles becomes the vibrant urban hub of cultural attractions, Vegas-sized conventions and hopping entertainment districts, as seems increasingly likely, far more visitors will undoubtedly descend on the area.

And they’ll need somewhere to stay. That’s the scenario that downtown’s hospitality industry is eagerly anticipating and preparing for.

“The revitalization of downtown is critical to the success of our industry,” said John Stoddard, general manager of the Wilshire Grand Hotel & Centre at 930 Wilshire Blvd.

Stoddard has seen a city remake itself before. He started working at a Hyatt hotel in San Francisco just before the earthquake that crippled the Bay Area during the 1989 World Series. That was followed by the recession of the early 1990s.

“I witnessed really a resurgence in San Francisco with the expansion of the convention center and the whole South of Market development area and Pac Bell Park,” Stoddard said. “L.A.’s a unique place with the cultural diversity and things we have going on here. We can’t be San Francisco, but we can be something different in our own right that will attract people.”

That’s a reason Jim Snow is in Los Angeles. Snow was brought in recently to lead the Omni Los Angeles Hotel at California Plaza, which formerly was the Hotel Intercontinental.

“People are putting money and effort into a lot of projects,” Snow said.

Pre-arrival impressions

Snow transferred here from Corpus Christi, Texas, where he won an Omni general manager of the year award for his revenue-raising skills. He said he was wasn’t sure what to expect upon his arrival in L.A.

“It wasn’t anything like I thought,” he said. “What I saw was a vibrant and exciting downtown that was safe and clean. The impression (before I arrived) was that L.A. was scary.”

Downtown L.A. has never been scary to Duane Cameron, president and CEO of System Property Development Company Inc. Cameron, whose company is converting the old Subway Terminal building near Pershing Square into loft apartments and has proposed a five-star hotel development on the parking lot next door, grew up in the city in the years that preceded his service in World War II.

“I remember the city when it was a bunch of small buildings, when the tallest buildings besides City Hall were 12-story buildings,” Cameron said. “When I was a kid, of course, I could ride my bike downtown. When people wanted to see a first-run movie, they would come to downtown first.”

While downtown is unlikely to draw moviegoers from other parts of the city, Cameron is among the growing number of people who are convinced that downtown street life will become increasingly active in the months and years ahead.

Anchor looming

A critical piece of the puzzle will be an expanded convention center and the 1,800 or so hotel rooms proposed for the development around Staples Center.

“We have to have more things like Disney Concert Hall, more things like Staples Center, more things like the Cathedral (of Our Lady of the Angels) that will bring more tourists,” Cameron said. “Then there will be a need for more hotels. And when you get more conventions, you’ll get more tourists through word of mouth.”

On a far smaller scale, some hotels are undertaking upgrades to increase their appeal. Stoddard said $2 million was spent to improve the Wilshire Grand’s Point Morea bar. He said the hotel also sends out salespeople to the East Coast and up and down the Pacific Coast, heralding the wonders of Los Angeles.

Brian Fitzgerald, general manager of the Westin Bonaventure, moved to Los Angeles a couple of years ago from the Boston area. Back East, he said, downtowns are known for exhilarating nightlife. That’s not what he found here, although it wasn’t the dead town he was told about.

Fitzgerald has taken some initiative as well. With the food and beverage team at the hotel, he decided to reposition the Top of Five restaurant, which was doing business mostly with hotel guests. Today, he said, the renamed L.A. Prime steakhouse is serving 70 percent of its high-priced entrees to suburbanites who make the trip downtown to eat and attend cultural events or other recreational activities.

“Many people haven’t been here in a long time,” he said. “Any time we give them an opportunity to come downtown, it’s a spin-off for the rest of us.”

In his early 50s, Stoddard figures that managing the Wilshire Grand is his last stop. He also expects the job to be his most dynamic one because he will witness first-hand downtown Los Angeles roaring to life.

“I figure I have about 10 years left in me,” he said. “It might take us that long, but by the time I’m ready to retire we’ll be there.”