By Terry Karkos,Staff Writer

Procrastination, high gas prices and 17 days of rain in May probably contributed to this spring’s tourism drought in western Maine, says Lorraine Blais.

Despite those dampers, she expects tourism to rebound strongly this month and next, said Blais, co-owner of Bear Mountain Inn in Waterford.

“I think people waited until the last minute to decide where to go,” she said last week. “I’m not sure if it was the 17 days of rain or gas prices going up, but something is holding them back.”

Margie Jamison, co-owner of the Country Club Inn in Rangeley, said that wet weather caused a business downswing in May and June.

Her inn, which has a golf course and pool, overlooks Rangeley Lake and the western Maine mountains.

“It’s just been kind of depressing because of the rain. Business has been real spotty until now,” she said.

Blais said Bear Mountain Inn, an all-season haven on Bear Lake, attracts tourists from Boston and New Jersey in early summer, then Canadians and New Yorkers in mid-August.

“We’re nowhere near as strong as we were last year at this time, but everybody is off,” she said, speaking of other businesses in the Greater Oxford Hills region.

Promising signs

Steve Lyons, a tourism development specialist with the Maine Office of Tourism, said the state is poised to reap tourism’s economic whirlwind this summer.

The state’s No. 1 industry in terms of employment and overall sales “is looking pretty good this year,” Lyons said.

The Sudbury Inn in Bethel is seeing an increase in bookings, said co-owner Nancy White.

“We’re up 10 percent on the year from Jan. 1st,” White said last week. “Despite having a cold, rainy May and unbearable heat in June, we are up slightly in June, and were up 3 percent in May. For those reasons, she said the inn’s staff is optimistic about the summer.

Jamison said her inn’s “bookings are really picking up. Right now, it looks to be as good as last summer and, hopefully, better.”

Lyons said that requests for lodging packages are rising, and whitewater rafting inquiries are up. Maine also is attracting increased interest from international travelers and Canadians, and people are traveling, she said.

“That’s very positive. Over the last five years or so, Maine has had 43 million to 44 million travelers annually. It’s stayed pretty flat,” he said.

Economy stronger

Gary Adams, owner and operator of the Ramada Inn Conference Center on Pleasant Street in Lewiston, said May’s wet weather wasn’t a factor in its business barometer.

“So far this season, we’re running fairly busy, but I don’t know if that’s because of our location” near the Turnpike, he said last week. “We’re not a destination point, but business has been substantially up over the last few years.”

The future outlook doesn’t seem to be dimming either.

“We don’t see any indication of there being a down’ ahead of us. I don’t know why the weather hasn’t affected us, but I think the economy is running stronger, which forces another segment of the population out,” Adams added.

Alice Chamberlin, director of sales at the Hilton Garden Inn in downtown Auburn, said last week that business also is booming there. Inn officials there have been expecting a 7 percent increase in business in the Northeast.

“We’re almost up 10 percent in occupancy,” said Chamberlin.

This year, state tourism officials are aggressively pursuing tourists and their money.

Lyons said one strategy is to run television ads on national cable channels. Specifically, that’s meant the Travel Channel, TV Land, Hallmark Network, Lifetime Movie Network, Biography Channel and Bravo.

“Our Maine ads are a 60-second spot that shows a lot of nice scenes, like lighthouses and lobster, and moose and mountains and rivers, to spread people out across the state,” he said.

So far, that’s ringing true with global travelers.

More international visitors

According to a forecast of inbound travel to the U.S. in 2004, international arrivals increased by 11.8 percent, totaling 46.1 million visitors. This year, arrivals are forecast to grow by 6.5 percent and total 49.1 million visitors.

“That’s a good sign for us. We’re a drive-to destination, so things are looking up,” Lyons said.

According to the American Automobile Association, vacationers don’t change long-made travel plans because higher gas prices might cost them an extra $50 or $100. However, prices have never been as high as they are now so that could change this year.

Maine tourism officials are also targeting people in the Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., areas through magazine and newspaper advertising.

“In the past, our campaign focused on the mid-Atlantic region and the Northeast, but this year, we’re expanding,” Lyons said.

Seventy-two percent of all travel expenditures in Maine are made by out-of-state visitors, according to the Office of Tourism.

“Most of that is focused on the coast, but we want to try to get people to go to all parts of the state, so we’re doing our best to get people inland,” Lyons said.

That’s why plans are afoot to develop some nature-based tourism. To accomplish this, the state hired FERMATA Inc., a Texas “experiential tourism” consulting group, whose Web site is www.fermatainc.com.

The group is to develop a strategic plan for economic development through nature tourism in three pilot regions: the Western Mountains in northern Franklin, Oxford and Somerset counties; Greenville, Dover-Foxcroft, Millinocket and southern Piscataquis County; and Calais, Grand Lake Stream and Down East.

Day-trippers

In 2003, the estimated 9.3 million overnight trips in Maine were dwarfed by an estimated 35 million day trips.

“Day-trippers are very important here, because they make up the majority of the people that come to Maine,” Lyons said.

Of those doing overnight trips, 36 percent came to tour the state, 24 percent wanted to enjoy the outdoors, 12 percent sought a beach vacation, and 10 percent came to attend a special event.

According to a Maine Department of Economic and Community Development travel and tourism report, the lakes and mountains region attracts 6 million day-trippers annually.

Additionally, there were 1.4 million overnight trips, with one or more nights spent in the region itself. Sebago Lake led in this region, attracting 24 percent of overnight trips, followed by Lewiston with 16 percent, and Rangeley-Saddleback with 15 percent. Bethel-Sunday River and Fryeburg tied at 9 percent.

Outdoors trips, like camping, hiking, hunting, fishing and rafting, accounted for more than half of all the marketable or vacation overnight trips.

“We’re fortunate that Massachusetts is so close, and that people want to get out of the city. Our major tourists come here in cars from the Greater Boston area, New York and the Northeast, within a drive distance,” Lyons said.

Give them something’

Maine has more competition than ever for tourists, and the Internet puts a vast amount of information at the consumer’s fingertips. And being a drive-to destination works both for and against Maine, Lyons said.

“They can decide not to go this weekend, or they can go elsewhere, like Pennsylvania and the Poconos, where it’s not raining,” he said.

Getting tourists to Maine is the state’s job, but once they’re here, it’s up to individual chambers of commerce to entice travelers to their communities.

“Give them something – and they will come,” said Blais, pointing to the Bear Mountain Inn’s efforts to attract tourists by offering the second annual Bear Mountain Music Fest on Aug. 7.

“We want people to know they can take a left off I-95,” she said. “Western Maine has lots of mountains and lakes, and it’s a lot cooler,” she said.