Published: September 06, 2008 08:00 pm      

Tourism starts slow but turns around

HONOR -- It was early July and Kathy Stocklen fretted about what loomed as a bummer of a summer.

She and husband Tom are in their 37th year operating Riverside Canoes near the mouth of the Platte River in Benzie County, a popular tourism spot tucked in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. The Stocklens considered staff layoffs and other cutbacks after a tepid June and languid early July.

"Then the weather popped and things really took off," Stocklen said. "Everything's turned completely around."

Thanks to plenty of warm, sunny weather, the region's summer tourism season turned out to be of the better-late-than-never variety. Northern Michigan businesses and tourism draws reported a surge in activity from mid-July through the Labor Day holiday to salvage a decent tourism season.

"We're probably even with last year and maybe up a little bit," Stocklen said. "The people got out of the cities and came up north ... August was gangbusters for us."

Their experience mirrored that of nearby Sleeping Bear. The National Park Service recorded its lowest July visitor counts in 20 years, around 257,400 visitors, down almost 30 percent from July 2007.

But almost 100,000 more visitors frequented the park in August, totaling more than 353,000, a 5 percent increase from August 2007.

Assistant lakeshore Supt. Tom Ulrich said it's only the fourth time in 20 years that August drew more park visitors than July.

"Usually, July is our biggest month," Ulrich said.

Brad VanDommelen, head of the Traverse City Convention & Visitors Bureau, also described the summer tourism season as "a weird year."

"A lot of people are saying our August could be better than our July," VanDommelen said. The bureau is still compiling motel and hotel occupancy data for the season, and he said July 2008 numbers appear down slightly when compared to 2007, which featured the National Governors Association conference here.

Still, the region saw more visitors from Midwest states like Indiana and Illinois because of increased marketing efforts there, VanDommelen said.

Lodge owners also reported an increase in walk-in business this year, he said, indicating that more travelers decided on spur-of-the-moment trips to northern Michigan.

"We're finding more people that are just showing up," he said. "A lot of people held off on taking trips, but then decided 'Hey, we're going to go.'"