Reno-Tahoe tourism officials not as worried as some about gas prices

Pauline Arrillaga

Monday, March 6, 2000 | 4:45 a.m.

Last summer Keela Mangum, owner of Grand Canyon Trail Rides, was forced to close up shop two months early when six of her mules died of botulism. This year another malady threatens to wipe out her livelihood: exorbitant unleaded.

With the cost of fuel projected to surge past $1.70 a gallon this summer, tourism officials and guides across the West worried Monday that the usually booming summer travel season could be a bust.

"This is kind of bleak looking for us," said Mangum, whose family-run business provides mule rides into the Grand Canyon's North Rim, 270 miles from the nearest airport in Las Vegas. "We're at the end of the world as it is."

The Energy Department on Monday predicted that gasoline prices, already averaging about $1.50 for a gallon of unleaded, would escalate to $1.75 to $1.80 a gallon during the summer because production is not keeping pace with demand.

The timing couldn't be worse. The period between Memorial Day and Labor Day is typically the busiest driving season of the year, with an estimated 270 million people hitting the road for vacation, according to the American Automobile Association.

AAA spokesman Geoff Sundstrom said that while many travelers won't change their plans because of a few additional bucks a gallon, some could decide to stay closer to home and forgo trips to more remote destinations such as national parks out West.

"If prices continue to move up and begin to reach the $2 a gallon level, psychologically Americans may not be prepared to deal with that and continue business as usual with the family budget," he said.

That's what worries Eric Stevens, assistant manager of the Pahaska Tepee motel outside of Wyoming's Yellowstone National Park. The motel relies "almost exclusively" on the summer tourist season, Stevens said.

"We're going to lose a segment of the population, but then we'll pick up people we would never had seen," he said, predicting that higher fuel costs also will raise airfares and force more people to vacation domestically.

Tourism officials in Wallowa County, Ore., were less optimistic. The remote corner of northeastern Oregon, which includes the Eagle Cap Wilderness Area, John Day Fossil Loop, the Oregon Trail and Hell's Canyon Recreation Area, relies heavily on business from campers, hunters and anglers.

Yasha Sturgill, deputy manager of the Wallowa County Chamber of Commerce, said tourism already had slumped because of rising gas prices.

"We hear quite a few people complain about the price of gas here," currently hovering at $1.64 a gallon, she said. "Wallowa County will certainly suffer the backlash of that."

Bob Ferguson, owner of Zephyr Whitewater Expeditions in Columbia, Calif., just north of Yosemite National Park, said he'll have to resort to inflationary measures of his own - hiking ticket prices - should fuel prices continue to rise.

"There's the possibility that if things got way out of hand, we could add a little for the cost of gas or something like that. If it gets up to two bucks a gallon, we'll try to add more trips and compensate by putting more people down the river," he said.

"There's not a whole lot you can do," he added. "You just have to bite the bullet - and hope the prices will go down."

Tourism officials in the Reno-Lake Tahoe area said they haven't done any specific research but don't believe that higher gas prices would seriously curtail the number of visitors to the area.

"We had a great President's Day weekend and gas prices were already on the rise then," said Carol Tanis, spokeswoman for the Reno-Sparks Convention & Visitors Authority.

"While gas prices are up, the economy seems to be doing well," she said Monday.

Tahoe-area ski resorts have followed the holiday weekend with two more big weekends, thanks primarily to a pair of large snow storms in the Sierra.

"The good snow may help outweigh the higher gas prices," Tanis said.

As far as summer tourism, high gas prices didn't have any noticeable impact last year, she said.

The total visitor count to Reno-Sparks stayed flat - 5.1 million in 1998 and 5.1 million in 1999, she said.

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