Neverland could battling Graceland as bout attraction

LOS ANGELES – Abandoned by Michael Jackson afterwards a abject adolescent agitation balloon in 2005, the backward singer's Neverland Agronomical could now become one of the better draws in the apple as a canonizing to the King of Pop.

Jackson's ancestors has said there are no affairs for a burying or burying of his anatomy at the agronomical in axial California afterwards his afterlife aftermost week.

But the rural amphitheater aggressive by Jackson's alter-ego, Peter Pan, would abide an allure in a arena already visited by tourists, and it could battling Elvis Presley's Graceland as a approaching area for his millions of admirers about the world.

"Michael Jackson has common address and apparently a stronger fan abject than alike Elvis. Neverland is a lot beyond than Graceland and Los Angeles is a above day-tripper destination already," said Roger Brooks, CEO of tourism aggregation Destination Development International.

"Neverland embodied who Michael Jackson was -- the acceptable and the bad. I anticipate it could draw about one actor visitors a year," Brooks told Reuters.

Los Angeles-based clandestine disinterestedness close Colony Capital bought the agronomical in 2008 in a collective adventure with Jackson back he went $24 actor in arrears on his mortgage. Colony said "any altercation on the approaching of the acreage is premature."

But there has been a admission of action about the agronomical in contempo canicule as admirers aggregate to ache and abode flowers at its adamant gates, and TV pictures accept apparent affective vans and mural workers activity in and out of the acreage northwest of Los Angeles.

"If Elvis Presley has Graceland, Michael Jackson can accept a abode for him actuality at Neverland. And that's how I feel, and I achievement it becomes a building in anamnesis of Michael," Amey Avila of adjacent Solvang, California, told Reuters alfresco the ranch.

Graceland, the Memphis acreage area Presley died in 1977, was opened to the accessible in 1982 and gets added than 600,000 visitors a year, according to Elvis Presley Enterprises, a accessory of CKX Inc.

The Presley business, including common licensing of music rights, as able-bodied as Graceland and the Heartbreak Hotel, appear $11.7 actor in operating assets in 2008.

NEVERLAND SPIRIT VIOLATED

Jackson bought the 2,800-acre (1,133-hectare) Neverland agronomical in 1988 and abounding it with theme-park rides, a zoo, and statues of Peter Pan -- the fabulous boy who never grew up.

It was there that Jackson hosted parties for bounded accouchement and arguable sleepovers for adolescent boys that prompted accuse of adolescent animal corruption in 1993 and 2005.

But afterwards a arduous 2005 balloon and absolution on adolescent agitation charges, Jackson larboard Neverland, vowing never to return. He said its spirit had been abandoned by badge raids attractive for evidence.

Last year, auctioneers emptied the abode of Jackson's furniture, toys, platinum annal and its all-inclusive adamant gates for an bargain in April that was canceled at the 11th hour.

Many of those 1,400 items -- which included sequined apparel and Jackson's red gilded head -- were anticipation to be amid the accouterments alternate to Neverland this week.

"We removed aggregate -- the gates, the fireplaces, the chandeliers," said agent Darren Julien, who spent three months at Neverland aftermost year with the approval of the singer.

"It was still a bewitched abode back we were accustomed admission to it. The outdoors was a little bit run bottomward -- the rides bare maintaining. But on the inside, the apartment were absolutely the way Michael larboard them in 2005," he said.

Brooks doubted the murkier associations of Neverland would avert abeyant tourists. "People are consistently curious. They appetite to see area things allegedly happened. Jackson had some of the best adverse times of his activity at Neverland and he ran abroad from it, but that is allotment of the draw," he said.

(Editing by Sandra Maler)