Northern Michigan communities said they’re looking forward to the summer, with at least one travel official predicting travelers will be more likely to come north rather than a stay-cation in urban areas.
Carlin Smith is the President of the Petoskey Area Chamber of Commerce. He said northern Michigan communities have the benefit of offering safe, family-friendly locations.
“Tragic events and acts of terrorism can really have an impact on areas that are tourism based. We actually think that might work in our favor because we’re a pretty safe place to go. I think people feel comfortable coming here because it's a rural enough area that it's pretty safe”.
Smith said compared with a few years ago, he expects tourism spending to be strong this year.
“We saw it in the economic downturn and people still came and we had good tourism numbers. However, the price points and the spending were different. Right now people seem to be pretty comfortable economically so we’re hoping that the spending is strong”.
Smith said the increased popularity of craft breweries across the state is drawing a lot of people to northern Michigan.
“One of those is a new expanded brewery in Petoskey opening very soon called Beards Brewery. The model and the design of that business I think has success written all over it and I think we are going to see a lot of people and activity there”.
Smith said relatively low gas prices are encouraging people to travel and he’s already seeing an increase of traffic rolling into town.