Hospitality is still under the weather.

• Position: North Carolina travel and tourism industry outlook - Brief Article - Statistical Data Included

It's usually the losers who say, "Wait'll next year." But state tourism officials consider last year a winner, and they're eager for another one.

One of those people is Lynn Minges, executive director of the N.C. Division of Tourism, Film and Sports Development since December. She points to a 17% increase in 2000 visitor inquiries over the year before, when tourists spent $11.4 billion in the state. Welcome-center visits, another barometer, had increased 8.6% through October. "We've noticed pretty good growth throughout the state," she says. Even gas prices that were about a quarter a gallon higher than the year before didn't stop travelers. "We had some reports of some slowness over the summer along the coast, but that picked up in the fall."

Minges wasn't alone in her optimism. Jim Hobbs, president of the 378-member North Carolina Hotel & Motel Association, says western North Carolina fared well, despite scattered wildfires during peak fall-leaf season. And he, like Minges, cites a late-season surge in beach visits. Carolyn McCormick, executive director of the Outer Banks Visitors Bureau, says tourism was up more than 16% through November, with rentals up 20% in July and 34% in August from the same months a year earlier.

The reason for the upsurge: The flood of visitors came a year after a flood of water -- 1999's devastating Hurricane Floyd. The storm submerged much of the Coastal Plain in September, drowning what was shaping up to be a strong season, but the publicity was as damaging to tourism as the water. "We did have a traumatic event, nationally televised," Hobbs says, adding that images of the flooding had potential tourists canceling reservations, not making them, even in unaffected areas. Tourism was still strong in 1999. Revenues were up 5.6% from 1998, but most of the growth occurred in the first two-thirds of the year.

Minges and Hobbs agree that 2000 suffered some hangover not only from Floyd and Hurricane Dennis two weeks earlier but from a snowstorm that hit the Triangle in late January 2000. All forced school closings and lost days that had to be made up. "Summer season didn't start until a little bit later this year, which did have an impact," Minges says. Weather closings also meant students were going to school on weekends.

That put the kibosh on beach trips, and it forced families to cancel mountain ski weekends. However, unusually cold weather in November and December was giving tourism officials a warm glow. "We're...