Anchorage Daily News

PALMER -- The poor national economy this summer boosted the use of Matanuska-Susitna state parks but took a toll on everyone else in the local tourist business.

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Wayne Biessel

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Unofficially state parks in the Valley saw approximately 20 percent more people using them over last year.

Official numbers for the second quarter, which ended June 30, should be out later this week. Third quarter numbers won't be released until October.

Wayne Biessel, Mat-Su area State Parks Superintendent, said he saw an "appreciable increase" in visitors at the borough's recreational hot spots -- Denali State Park, Hatcher Pass Public Use Area and Nancy Lakes State Recreation Area.

"My thought is, it's largely due to better weather and lower gas prices," said Dan McDonough, owner of Lifetime Adventures which acts as caretaker for six borough state parks, plus those in Eagle River and Eklutna Lake.

"It's hard to bring your RV plus wave runners all the way out to Big Lake from Anchorage at $4.50 per gallon."

McDonough said one traffic indicator is the number of times staff had to open both campgrounds at Finger Lake. That happened three weekends last year. This year, both were open almost every weekend.

Hatcher Pass ranger Kym Miller said that her area continues to get busier each year but growth pops out in different places. There were days this summer where Archangel Road had more cars on it than the main parking lot at Independence Mine.

"In the last year our data showed we were getting in excess of 100,000 (visits) in a year, about 60,000 of that was in the summer," Miller said. "We're talking about just the May-to-August season so you can see why that seems like a lot of people."

But this growth appears to reflect more people seeking cheap getaways and wasn't mirrored in other borough tourist businesses.

Business was down across the board

The borough's second quarter bed tax numbers -- or the tax on hotel rooms -- was down 9 percent over last year, according to Casey Ressler, membership manager for the Mat-Su Convention and Visitors Bureau.

That sounds bad until you compare it to other parts of the state, he said. Fairbanks and the North Star Borough each collect a separate bed tax. They reported more than a 20 percent drop this year, according to the City of Fairbanks' Web site and Peggy Macdonald, budget manager for North Star Borough.

"Nine percent is a reason for a party," Ressler said.

Anjanette Steer, who co-owns Sheep Mountain Lodge on the Glenn Highway, said their high-end business declined while drop-ins increased.

"Last night we booked five different rooms at the last minute," Steer said. "We're typically turning people away and running full occupancy and we're not this summer."

Even Talkeetna Alaskan Lodge, which caters to those with high incomes, has posted a 12.8 percent decline year-to-date over last year, according to Paul Landis, a chief operating officer with CIRI Alaska Tourism Corp., which owns the lodge.

"Weather played well for us up there but I think the overall economy is down," Landis said. "A lot of tourism businesses were down substantially more than at the lodge."

Willow Air Taxi, co-owned by Gwen White, is one of those businesses. She had to lay off one full-time, year-round employee and cut back on overall office hours. She's holding off building more hangars at the Willow airport and downsized her fleet from four planes to three.

She said that while business that depends upon clients with high incomes didn't fluctuate, it was the casual drop-ins, those in search of short flight-seeing or fishing trips, that failed to materialize.

"With this economy, I don't know," she said about her plans for next year. "That's why we're cutting back and really pinching our pennies this year."

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