Utah travel: Fishing for customers

As the upcoming Memorial Day weekend kicks off the summer travel season in Utah and across the country, the combination of high gas prices, a terrible economy and a weak dollar may keep tourists closer to home.
    While few can debate the merits of getting away from work and hitting the road, many families will likely be scrambling to come up with the funds for even a short vacation.
    Rolayne Fairclough of AAA Utah said she expects travel trends to be similiar to 2007, a fairly flat year for the travel industry in the United States.
    "People went shorter distances and didn't stay as long," she said. "People will travel within their own locality and see their own state or a neighboring state."
    That said, Fairclough said people who have booked international travel experiences will still vacation, even though they know they will take a hit because of the weak dollar. She said many American travelers are turning to Asian destinations such as Thailand where the dollar buys more.
    Tracie Cayford of the Utah Division of Travel said that organization expects travelers to stay closer to home and has done much of its marketing in Phoenix, Los Angeles and Denver to lure out-of-state tourists into the state.
    "We're fishing where the fish are," she said. "We have a lot to offer with our national and state parks."
    She said requests for Utah Travel Guides are the same as last year, which set a record, and hotel properties in Utah are reporting heavy bookings throughout the summer, the state's busiest tourist season.
    Utah State Parks spokeswoman Deena Loyola said there is a sense that people are staying closer to home again this year.
    "We're about where we were last year in terms of advance reservations," she said. "Last year was a record year for us."
    The other factor that could make it difficult to get reservations most weekends at many parks close to the Wasatch Front this summer is that the heavy snowpack in the mountains should translate to full reservoirs, which is good news to boaters.
    The exception to that, at least early in the season, will be at Deer Creek and Willard Bay, where dam repairs will keep water levels low.
    Loyola suggested that boaters looking to beat the crowds might consider traveling a few miles farther to Yuba or Starvation reservoirs, which are not as busy.
    On Memorial Day weekends, some Utah state parks have nonreservable camping sites, including Bear Lake, Deer Creek, Red Fleet, Scofield, Starvation, Steinaker, Utah Lake, Wasatch Mountain and Yuba - and some of those parks could fill.
    Paul Henderson, a spokesman for Canyonlands and Arches national parks, said special events have kept Moab busy through much of the spring. But he said it is too early to tell whether international or national travelers will replace the locals who typically avoid Moab during the hotter summer season.
    "June will start telling the story," he said. "Traditionally, school is out everywhere across the country and we start seeing our national and international visitors."
    That said, getting a camping spot inside Arches or Canyonlands can be difficult, especially on the weekends. Half of Arches sites can be reserved on ReserveAmerica.com. Many public campgrounds fill on weekends in the Moab area.
    Kathy Jo Pollock of the U.S. Forest Service said lower-elevation campgrounds could fill on Memorial Day weekend, but some of the higher-elevation campgrounds, such as those around Mirror Lake, may be open later than in past years due to heavy snowpack.
    "I suspect with prices the way they are, people will be staying a little closer to home and will use the campground facilities which are definitely closer to where they live. That may impact a lot of our campgrounds as well as those on BLM lands and the National Park Service," she said.
    Some things are certain.
    First, tourism is huge in the United States, generating $1.6 trillion a year that in turn generates $110 billion in tax revenue for local, state and federal governments, according to the Travel Industry Association. Approximately 2.8 million room nights are sold every day in the United States, enough rooms to lodge every person living in Dallas, Detroit, Denver and Orlando combined.
    Second, there are health benefits to taking vacations.
    Consider the data collected by the Travel Industry Association:
    * Travelers rate their overall health a full point higher on a scale of 1 to 5 while on vacation.
    * Travelers get three times more deep sleep after their vacation and sleep almost 20 minutes longer.
    * An annual vacation can cut a person's risk of heart attack by 50 percent.
    * Women who take more vacations are more satisfied with their marriages.
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   * TOM WHARTON can be contacted at wharton@sltrib.com. His phone number is 801-257-8909.