BETHEL – The passenger vans often sat empty a month ago, waiting to shuttle kayaks, canoes and tourists to the Androscoggin River.

On Wednesday, they ran every hour.

“I’m putting at least 50 people on the river today,” said Pattie Parsons, owner of Bethel Outdoor Adventure & Campground.

“July has been a good month,” she said. “This year was very slow getting going. The staff was ready but I couldn’t put them to work until the end of June.”

That’s been a familiar scenario for those in the tourist industry this year, as businesses scramble to make up for a surprisingly slow May and June.

State park visitors and day campers are down 10 percent from 2002. Maine Turnpike traffic is up slightly, but lodging sales are down, and the restaurant business is flat, according to state records.

“I had hoped that the turnaround would be brisk,” said Vaughn Stinson, executive director of the Maine Tourism Association, which represents 1,700 members.

Stinson and others thought the end of major conflict in Iraq would boost the travel market. But the economy in general limped throughout spring, and into summer. On top of that, cold, wet weather stalled the beginning of the traditional travel season.

Still, Stinson is not in panic mode.

“It’s a much brighter outlook than it was,” in June, he said. “No one is jumping up and down, but at this point we’re holding our own.”

Evelyn McAllister, executive director at the Rangeley Lakes Chamber of Commerce, agreed.

“I’ve talked to several business, and we’re pleased,” McAllister said. “There was the usual lull after the Fourth of July. I’d say our business is solid, it’s plugging right along.”

Water sports, particularly kayaking, are hot, she said. And the chamber desk has handled dozens of inquiries about hiking trails.

Hiking, kayaking, bicycling, rafting and other adventure sports continue to draw more people to western Maine’s lakes and mountains, said Wende Gray, managing director of Raft Maine. Her association includes 13 rafting outfitters that operate on the Kennebec, Penobscot and Dead rivers.

Rafting inquiries were down 30 percent from January through June, Gray said. But the outfitters have handled dozens of late bookings, often made a few days before the outing. Surprisingly, Gray said, the bookings are coming from as far away as Minnesota, California and Texas.

“Basically nothing happened until July 1, when the sun started to shine and the temperatures went up,” said Gray, whose office is in Bethel. “It’s been great ever since. I know this weekend is pretty much overbooked.”

Stinson also noted the trend in late bookings. He said vacationers are still coming to Maine as in past years, but they are hunting more for bargains. And people who might have stayed for a week are cutting those trips short.

“The good news is they haven’t cut out the trips alltogether,” Stinson said.

Southern Maine has fared better than coastal and northern regions, he added, as it is closer to Massachusetts, Maine’s largest market for visitors. The number of visitors at Acadia National Park, through the month of May, was down 16 percent from last year. And through June, traffic has dropped about 10 percent at the state’s six roadside visitor centers.

“Talking to people up and down the seaboard, the economy has people concerned,” Stinson said. He had expected business to be up two or three percentage points over last year.

“I haven’t given up hope on that,” he said. “We’ve still got five months to go.”

Tourism is considered the state’s largest industry, supporting more than 100,000 jobs according to Longwoods International, a Toronto-based research firm. Adults took 43 million trips here in 2001, the last year for which comprehensive records are available. Those visitors spent about $5.6 billion on food, lodging, leisure activities, retail goods and transportation, boosting state tax receipts by $344 million.

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