0524
Jun 23, 01, 1:16 pm
From Anchorage Daily News online:
Tourism companies in Alaska are slashing rates and offering special discount packages to attract business in what most describe as a sluggish visitor season.
Princess Alaska Lodges, for example, is offering $99 rooms at its two hotels along the Parks Highway close to Denali National Park and Preserve. That's dirt cheap for Alaska's peak season. The rooms normally would fetch $149 during June and July, said Tom Dow, a Princess spokesman.
"This is kind of unusual for us to be extending this rate into the middle of the season," said Dow. "By the end of the year, we'll be lucky to end up flat with last year."
Dow and others in the tourism industry describe 2000 as a soft year.
"It looks like we're going to have a tepid growth year. In fact, it might even be flat," said Dennis Brandon, head tourism executive for Cook Inlet Region Inc. CIRI owns hotels in Talkeetna and Seward and offers day cruises in Kenai Fjords and Prince William Sound.
Economic jitters, stock market woes and higher gas prices are the main factors keeping tourists away from Alaska, tourism analysts said. Many travelers that would come to Alaska seem to be wallet-watching and choosing destinations closer to home, said Tina Lindgren, executive director of the Alaska Travel Industry Association, the state's major tourism-marketing organization.
"There's not a crisis. But nobody is saying this is a gangbusters year," said Lindgren.
Alaska is fiercely competing with Europe for travelers this summer, analysts said.
Tourism companies in Alaska are slashing rates and offering special discount packages to attract business in what most describe as a sluggish visitor season.
Princess Alaska Lodges, for example, is offering $99 rooms at its two hotels along the Parks Highway close to Denali National Park and Preserve. That's dirt cheap for Alaska's peak season. The rooms normally would fetch $149 during June and July, said Tom Dow, a Princess spokesman.
"This is kind of unusual for us to be extending this rate into the middle of the season," said Dow. "By the end of the year, we'll be lucky to end up flat with last year."
Dow and others in the tourism industry describe 2000 as a soft year.
"It looks like we're going to have a tepid growth year. In fact, it might even be flat," said Dennis Brandon, head tourism executive for Cook Inlet Region Inc. CIRI owns hotels in Talkeetna and Seward and offers day cruises in Kenai Fjords and Prince William Sound.
Economic jitters, stock market woes and higher gas prices are the main factors keeping tourists away from Alaska, tourism analysts said. Many travelers that would come to Alaska seem to be wallet-watching and choosing destinations closer to home, said Tina Lindgren, executive director of the Alaska Travel Industry Association, the state's major tourism-marketing organization.
"There's not a crisis. But nobody is saying this is a gangbusters year," said Lindgren.
Alaska is fiercely competing with Europe for travelers this summer, analysts said.