RV visits to Alaska dismal this year

(SEPT 1, 2008) -- After 16 years in business, Suzanne Spanjer has closed her Chena Marina RV Park in Fairbanks for good -- visitors just aren’t showing up. Vehicle crossings from Canada are down nearly 20 percent this year when compared with the same year-to-date period in 2007. According the Fairbanks News-Miner, as of Friday, Aug. 29, 7,050 vehicles with 16,000 people had crossed into Alaska in 2008, compared to 8,747 vehicles with 19,668 passengers for the same time period last year.

And there are far fewer motorhomes. And those that do come are often European vacationers who fly into Whitehorse, Yukon, rent RVs, and tour the roads of Yukon and Alaska before boarding a flight home from Anchorage or Fairbanks.

At milepost 1083 of the Alaska Highway, about halfway between Tok and Whitehorse, Loren Maluorno owns and operates Destruction Bay RV Lodge on the shores of Kluane Lake. Despite the scenery, vacationers are passing the place by, Maluorno said. His business is down at least 30 percent this year, and he hears plenty of talk from other operators who are closing down early.

High fuel prices are the reason. “People are still coming, but they’re not driving up the road,” Spanjer said. “Nobody is out on the roads. They’re gone.”

SOURCE: FAIRBANKS NEWS-MINER