Tracking the tourism stampede.

• Author: Woodring, Jeannie

It's a banner year for Alaska-bound travelers, but only hard work will make the industry a goldmine.

Like another gold rush stampede, a record number of visitors will flock to the Far North this year. To ensure that the bonanza doesn't go bust, businesses and organizations around the state are digging in to overcome challenges and create new strategies that will ensure the tourism industry continues to be a gold mine for Alaska.

"Tourism is far and away the most stable industry Alaska has had, and we've gotten more complacent about it," says Conn Murray, director of the state division of tourism. "No matter what we do, people seem to come."

Statistics reflect the wealth of Alaska tourism. Almost one million travelers come here each year, generating 19,000 jobs in the summer season and an average 13,500 jobs year-round, making pleasure travel Alaska's third-highest employment category. These visitors pour $31 million annually into Alaska's general fund and spend more than $20 million each year riding the state's railroad and airline systems. Counting the trickle-down effect on businesses around Alaska, tourism's total impact brings the state more than $1 billion each year.

But hard times tend to follow every gold rush. At Denali National Park, visitors stand in long lines to catch buses rolling into the scenic wilderness. In Anchorage, last-minute travelers struggle to find overnight accommodations in the busy summer months. Year after year, every Alaska town next to a highway scrambles to find parking space for RV-trekkers.

And these frustrations are only a taste of the tourism troubles that could come.

"We are going to need a cooperative effort on many different levels to expand tourism," says Karen Cowart, executive director of the Alaska Visitors Association.

Unwilling to wait for tourism dark days, Alaska's visitor industry is tackling the issues head on. At the state level, the Alaska Visitors Association just released a report, "Destination: Alaska," which outlines hard-hitting strategies for improving all facets of the visitor trade. On regional levels, far-flung communities now pool their resources and funds to lure more travelers.

On local levels, in every corner of the state, tourism businesses dream up new attractions to entice today's Far North traveler.

Working together, these tourism businesses and organizations hope they can overcome Alaska's visitor challenges. After all, a long-lasting bonanza brings more benefits than a boom that goes bust.

Aggressive Statewide Action. Boasting a membership of more than 700 tourism businesses and organizations, the Alaska Visitors Association (AVA) spent two years and $320,000 of its own funds surveying 600 Alaskans in 27 communities to prepare its "Destination: Alaska" report.

"We wanted to see how the tourism industry could better provide economic benefit to the state and grow but not create problems for the residents of Alaska," Cowart says. "We wanted to provide a foundation for dialog and consensus, then put together an action plan that would work as a blueprint for the Alaska visitor industry."

The report states that, in the 1990s, Alaska's visitors are becoming more independent and eager to travel off the beaten path. They join fly-drive tours instead of the big packaged events; they seek out bed and...