A tantalizing tourism tale

So you’re in a saloon or a coffee house someplace, and you make a wild statement.

“Idaho is completely different from the rest of the United States,” you say. “I think we’re going in opposite directions.”

There are chuckles and guffaws around the table, naturally.

“But I can prove it,” you say, hauling a couple of charts out of your back pocket.

You pass the paperwork around, and smirk at the silence. As a proud Idahoan, you’ve got to love it.

What you’ve brought to the party, quite cleverly, are documents charting tourism.

It seems, you point out, that fewer people are visiting this country now — but Idaho’s tourist business is up.

This isn’t some statistical fluke, either.

Tourism dropped 4 percent nationally during President Trump’s first year in office, which probably isn’t a shock since there are tight travel bans and it’s simply tougher to get into the country.

Plus ...

Lots of potential visitors no doubt have been scared away by what seems, from a distance, like America’s lack of interest in outsiders.

There is a human cost to that, by the way, as roughly 40,000 travel industry workers have lost their jobs.

And of course, money is involved. It’s estimated that the travel industry in this country has taken a $4.6 billion hit.

Adam Sacks, president of Tourism Economics, told The New York Times: “It’s not a reach to say the rhetoric and policies of this administration are affecting sentiment around the world, creating antipathy toward the U.S. and affecting travel behavior.”

Ah, but what about Idaho?

We’re doing just fine, thank you very much.

In the period from the start of the current fiscal year last July 1 to mid-January, bed tax income was up 9.84 percent across the state when compared to the same time during the previous year.

The jump has been 6.1 percent in Kootenai County.

“Our numbers, locally and statewide, just keep going up year on year,” said Mark Robitaille, executive director of the Coeur d’Alene Convention & Visitors Bureau.

“More and more people want to visit and enjoy what we have to offer,” he said.

THERE’S ALSO a logistical reason for this local success.

Travelers to Idaho destinations tend to come from an area consisting of a 350-mile radius, and many of them arrive by car.

“We don’t depend on international visitors, not anywhere near the point that urban and coastal areas do — California and Seattle, for instance,” Robitaille said.

This next item seems pretty obvious, but keeping the tourism pot bubbling in North Idaho is critical to the area’s well-being.

In the last full year for which statistics are available (2014), visitors spent $689 million in the area and accounted for 9,800 jobs.

For a place our size, that’s a bunch.

Perhaps the only current soft spot concerns visitors from Canada, some of whom are staying away due to the sagging Canadian dollar.

“That’s something you can’t control, and it goes in cycles,” Robitaille said. “The good news is that numbers suggest that the state — and North Idaho — are really doing well with the things they can control.”

So there, my friend, you win that argument with your pals.

In tourism, at least, Idaho and the nation at large ...

Yes, are moving quickly in opposite directions.

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Steve Cameron is a columnist for The Press.

Email: [email protected].

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