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Show Travel Business Good or Bad Here, Depending on Who Yea Talk To With summer well underway, under-way, feelings are mixed locally lo-cally over the impact of the travel industry during 1969 a survey revealed this week. Although local tourguides in some cases reported their biggest month in many years during June, other travel-connected travel-connected businesses in the area were showing declines from the previous year, and a number of different reasons reas-ons have been listed. With motel occupancy obviously ob-viously down from last sum mer, several reasons have been given by local business people involved in the industry. indus-try. First, it is stated, the opening of two new motels in the community has jumped jump-ed total accommodations hereby here-by some 25 per cent this season. sea-son. This fact, coupled with the belief that other communities com-munities have told travelers that the room situation in Moab is tight, is listed by some as a reason for the decline. de-cline. Other reasons listed are national uncertainly ov er rising interest rates and inflation; and projected downturns down-turns in the nadonal economy econ-omy this fall. Travel Patterns Otlvrs. who have observed the travel industry here for a number of years, attribute much of the June luii to the patterns cf travelers. ''Families ''Fam-ilies with young chkiren just out rf school are the majority major-ity of those on the road this time of year." they say, indicating in-dicating that this group of travelers are more likely to be pulling or carrying their . own accommodations in the form of campers and trailers. trail-ers. "Late August, Septem- " ber and October will bring the families whose children are grown," they say, and these are the types who . spend more time, are less likely to camp out, etc. Experience of some of the tourguides whose businesses are showing increases this summer seems to be borne out by travel in national parks and monuments in the area. Arches Travel Way Up Arches National Monument, the area's busiest visitor attraction, at-traction, reportes that travel for June was up tremendously tremendous-ly over tlie previous year, and this despite a good deal of cooler and wetter weather. wea-ther. 33,272 visitors entered Arches Ar-ches during the month . of June, bringing the total for the year to date to 71,507. This compares with 23,652 during June of last year with a total for the first half of 1963 of 54,645. Without a doubt, Arches seems to be heading for its bggest travel year in history. At Dead Horse Point State Park, travel is down around 1,000 visitors in June compared com-pared to last year, mi ih number of campers visiting the park continues at high . levels. Week-day traffic is very low there, but weekends . are busy, according to Chief Ranger Raymond Roper. Who Do You Talk To? At any rate, it appears that whether or not travel is up or down this summer, it depends a whole lot on who you talk to. A number of points become fairly obvious, however. One is that the travel industry in general is mercurial; with national events, attitudes, economics ec-onomics and weather playing play-ing a big part in its rse and fall. Another point is that despite des-pite promotional activities, it takes time for the word to get out concerning facilities. Many believe that Moab's "no vacancy" summer of 1967, during the filming of two motion pictures by Paramount Para-mount Pictures, discouraged travelers by word-of-mouth publicity. Further, it is obvious that facilities developmcnt outside out-side the communities involved involv-ed plays a definite part in travel popularity. Arches National Na-tional Monument, the most completely developed attraction attrac-tion in the area, continues to be, by far, the most popular popu-lar with the largest number of visitors. |