Travel & Tourism.

• Position: Industry Outlook - In Utah - Panel Discussion

DESPITE INCREASED EXPOSURE from the 2002 Olympic Winter Games, Utah's travel and tourism industry still faces many unknowns. Threats of homeland terrorism, increasing gas prices, budget cuts and lack of government funding have dampened some of Utah's post-Games hopes for an influx of tourism dollars. Local travel, tourism and hospitality executives gathered at the Salt Lake Convention & Visitors Bureau to discuss their industry's challenges and opportunities.

Participants included Dianne Binger, Salt Lake Convention & Visitors Bureau; Dennis Copyak, Le Bus; Robert Dibblee, Delta Airlines; Mark Erekson, Grand America Hotel; Keith Griffall, Western Leisure; Tom Guinney, Gastronomy representing the Downtown Alliance; Larry Jackstien, Snowbird Corp.; Steve Lundgren, Marriott; Bill Malone, Park City Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Bureau; Mark Mundel, Red Lion; Courtland Nelson, State of Utah Department of Natural Resources, Division of Parks & Recreation; Kip Pitou, Ski Utah; Chip Smith, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints; and Dave Taber, Hilton Airport.

Special thanks to Mark White of the Salt Lake Convention & Visitors Bureau, a frequent contributor to Utah Business magazine, for moderating and hosting this month's Executive Roundtable.

Our industry has a number of challenges. We're in the midst of an economic downturn. The Olympics have come and gone. What is the prognosis for the coming months?

GRIFFALL: We do general tourism throughout the West, and we have noticed an uptake in the bookings for this coming summer, but that's because people are afraid to go outside the United States. The western U.S. becomes a real attractive alternative because it's safe.

LUNDGREN: People are delaying decision-making as far as travel. If they need to travel, they still go, but if it's a trip that may not be necessary or if it's something they can get done electronically or on the telephone, they're making those choices. We felt things would be great by fourth quarter. I'm not sure that's still true.

MALONE: We see, on the leisure side, a shrinking of that lead time between the time that they actually book and the time that they arrive. It comes down to what's the best deal that day; who's got snow It's not that luxury that we had years ago when we could sit back in August and predict what our season's going to be like.

PITOU: Our destination business is up. It is positive due to the Olympics probably. The local market is not so snow-dependent, but the destination market is. We've sold "the greatest snow on earth" for so many years that people are starting to believe it.

COPYAK: We've seen a lot of activity. This is probably the heaviest summer bookings that we've seen in 16 years. People are feeling the safety of the interior.

LUNDGREN: Everything compared to 2002, at least in lodging, is substantially different because we don't have the pre- and post-Olympics. But compared to 2001, we're doing well.

DIBBLEE: We're seeing, since September 11th, a dramatic reduction in air travel. We're seeing a reduction for trips of 400 miles or less, so people who are going to get there within a day or two are traveling by car and decide not to fly. We're seeing a reduction in our international flights. I wish we could say that we thought we would be profitable in 2003. We're now looking at possibly 2006 or 2007. As much as we try reducing capacity, reducing employees, reducing our fleet, there's so much quicksand out there today, we could see a couple more airlines go into bankruptcy.

NELSON: Other issues may come into play with regards to the park resource. A nasty summer fire season would kill those folks who have made tentative plans to come in.

PITOU: The Colorado Legislature appropriated [money] for tourism based upon fires last year. They have a base budget of $5.5 million, and they just added another $10 million to that. The state is running a deficit of $850 million, but they still appropriated some money for tourism. Our legislature is closing this issue. There's nothing appropriated for tourism, so we're at a huge disadvantage.

JACKSTIEN: Looking at the ski business, we've been surprised at how well the destination business has held up this year. Locals stay away when the snow is not perfect, so skier hits...