Sales tax confirms ‘fair’ tourist season Numbers offer hint of Canadian return

Even though 1999 was a tough act to follow, the 2000 tourism season kept pace.

The state says taxable sales in the lodging and restaurant sectors in the year ending Sept. 30 exceeded totals from the same period in 1999.

Nat Bowditch, assistant director of the Office of Tourism, said Thursday that sales tax figures show lodging businesses recorded $406 million in sales, up 5.7 percent over 1999. Restaurants took in $1.1 billion in sales, an increase of 4.3 percent over last year.

Some of the increase can be attributed to rate hikes for rooms and meals, he said, but tourism officials are nonetheless cheered by the data.

“It seems as though we had a fair year,” Bowditch said. Since the 1999 season was a record-setter, anything near the levels of that year are welcomed. In 1999, lodging sales tax figures were up 9 percent over the previous year.

Last year was characterized by an uncommonly hot summer in the Boston and New York areas, and that often drives the impulse traveler north to Maine.

This year was cooler than average, and gasoline prices had climbed steeply by mid-spring. Both factors had the potential to dampen the Maine vacation draw.

But Bowditch said impulse travelers make up a smaller percentage than many people think.

And gasoline prices may have added $10 to $20 to the cost of a trip to Maine from southern New England, not enough to change anyone’s mind about coming.

One particularly bright spot observed this year is the return – or the beginnings of a return – of Canadian visitors. When the currency exchange rate dipped a few years ago so that the Canadian dollar was worth about 75 cents in the United States, Maine businesses felt the sting as Canadians dropped the state from their vacation plans.

Though the exchange rate still takes away a chunk of their buying power here, Canadian visitors to Maine appear to be “coming back quite well,” Bowditch said.

The explanation may be “pent-up demand,” he said, or “a certain tolerance for the exchange rate.”

Still, the Canadian factor is not anywhere as large as it had been several years ago, Bowditch said.

The state’s $1.8 million advertising budget still pales in comparison with what Canadian provinces spend, but last winter, Maine officials invested in national cable TV advertising, which seems to have generated strong interest. The ads ran on the Travel and Lifetime networks.

The tourism office also paid for a glossy brochure to be inserted into Boston and New York daily newspapers.

The state’s tourism Web site – www.visitmaine.com – saw an increase in activity after the advertising, Bowditch said.

Tourism is Maine’s second-largest industry, after forest products, and has an estimated indirect impact of $8.8 billion on the state economy, Bowditch said.

October sales tax figures are not available yet, but tourism officials believe the fall “shoulder” season was strong.

“We understand it went well,” he said of the late fall. “The weather was decent. Advance bookings were solid.”

The impact of the Motor Home Association’s national convention in Maine, which brought thousands of the recreational vehicles to the state, has yet to measured, Bowditch said.

“All that we’ve been getting anecdotally is that it was fair,” Bowditch said of the 2000 season in general.

Reports from around the state were that visitation and spending were “average,” “good” or “excellent.”