Downturn not slowing flow of foreign tourists to Utah

It seems Utah's travel industry wasn't copied on the memo regarding the worldwide economic downturn.

So what if Japanese tourists don't have as strong a yen to visit Utah's national parks? They might later this summer when Delta Air Lines adds a new nonstop flight between Tokyo and Salt Lake City.

And besides, there are apparently plenty of other international visitors wanting to make Utah their 2009 vacation destination, according to the Utah Office of Tourism.

"We're expecting it to be an up year (for foreign visits)," predicts spokeswoman Tracy Cayford.

Gene Seiler, marketing director for Ruby's Inn, the unofficial gateway to Bryce Canyon National Park, prefers tempering his outlook for the moment, however.

"Cautiously optimistic" is how Seiler describes the upcoming season. He said many of his foreign bookings were purchased last fall at favorable exchange rates when the dollar was weaker so, fingers crossed, he's expecting his guests to show up as planned.

Even a best-case scenario equals a flat international tourist season compared to a year ago, explains Ruby's Inn Hotel general manager Lance Syrett. While Syrett is seeing slight visitor increases from Germany, Italy and France, there's a noticeable decline from the United Kingdom.

Tracking international visitors to Utah is tricky. Travel officials point out that visitation data collected from sources such as the U.S. Commerce Department. and U.S. Travel Association sometimes conflict with anecdotal evidence locally reported across the state. So last year's 740,000 reported international visitors to Utah — compared to a total of 20 million tourists visiting the state overall — might be overly conservative.

Marian DeLay, executive director of the Moab Area Travel Council, doubts this year will match 2008's banner year, which was spurred by the weak dollar, for foreign visitors.

"But I think we're pretty optimistic down here," DeLay said. "Maybe we're not going to see as many international visitors as we did the previous two years, but we'll still see some because the value is there or because they paid for it when the value was there."

Syrett said the dollar's struggles verses the euro last year are a blessing now because European tour operators are able to promote U.S. vacations as strong values — boosting operations heavily dependent on Western European traffic like his.