European Tourist Pros Visit Cda Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota Join Forces To Woo International Visitors

FOR THE RECORD (January 27, 1998): Hotel incorrect: The Coeur d’Alene Inn provided 21 European tour operators and foreign journalists with complimentary lodging last weekend. A story in Monday’s paper credited the wrong hotel.

How do you convince 21 European tour operators to book stays in North Idaho?

Ski, swing, sales, slots.

Or at least that’s the recipe Coeur d’Alene-Post Falls Convention and Visitor Bureau officials banked on this weekend.

The international visitors skied at Schweitzer Mountain Resort and Silver Mountain and country-western line-danced at State Line. A few hit the Levi’s outlet store in Post Falls, while others pulled the slots at the tribal bingo casino in Worley.

The 21 European tour operators and foreign journalists were in Coeur d’Alene for the Rocky Mountain International Roundup, a rotating annual conference to promote Idaho, Wyoming, South Dakota and Montana. Rocky Mountain International, a private Cheyenne, Wyo.-based marketing firm, coordinates the international tourism budgets for all four Western states.

Touting themselves as “The Real America,” the states jointly are nursing a growing tourist niche for adventure activities, natural attractions and cowboy subculture.

“None of the four states has large tourism budgets, but pooled together, we have some clout,” said Chuck Box, Rocky Mountain International director.

When added to funds from the other three states, Idaho’s $140,000 international tourism budget packs the collective wallop of a $1.3 million budget.

“A tourist can be shared, and together there are a lot more legitimate attractions,” Box said.

Every year, 3.1 million British, 2.2 million Germans and 1.1 million French tourists visit the mainland United States. Most go to Florida, New York or the Southwest. But after years of being out-marketed by the Canadian Rockies, the U.S. Rocky Mountain states are in demand, Box said.

The number of German tour operators offering Rocky Mountain packages has grown from 36 in 1991 to 114 last year. Likewise, the number of British tour operators offering Rocky Mountain trips has grown from 13 in 1991 to 79 today.

Kootenai County’s $250 million tourist trade is the county’s No. 1 industry, said Nancy DiGiammarco, executive director of the Coeur d’Alene-Post Falls Convention and Visitor Bureau. The Idaho Panhandle is starting to draw European ski enthusiasts who are seeking alternatives to long lift lines and dwindling snow in the Alps.

“The winter is coming later in the Alps, so there’s no snow where there was snow before at Christmastime,” said Gaby Funk, a German free-lance journalist who writes for mountaineering magazines.

“Here, there are no lines, people are friendly and the snow is very good,” said Elke Cerny, a tour operator from Frankfurt, Germany.

The city of Spokane is considering joining RMI to market itself as an official access route to the Rocky Mountain states, because none of the four has a hub airport.

“We sell Spokane as a gateway,” said Hartly Kruger, president of the Spokane Area Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Plus there’s one other advantage Spokane has over Idaho, Wyoming, Montana and South Dakota: a Nordstrom store, Idaho Tourism Director Carl Wilgus said.

Instead of marketing each state individually, RMI organizes theme tours throughout all four. Visitors can choose a national park or American Indian tour, for example.

There are tours for high adventure sports, fishing, famous trails, hot springs, golf, even paleontology and movie locations.

For many, it’s the lure of the Old West, coupled with organized “soft adventure activities” of the New West. “They want to stay on a dude ranch, fly-fish and try being a cowboy,” said James Rudman, a British journalist with the Travel Trade Gazette.

“The area is also astonishingly beautiful, with such a variety. There’s lakes, mountains, plains, deserts and little bits of the moon. It’s slightly off the beaten path, but they like the space of this part of the world.”

The four-state region stretches over 400,000 square miles, but holds fewer than 3 million people.

That’s a lot of breathing room for Londonites with 8 million neighbors.

This fascination with the open American frontier is prodding a demand for cattle drives and dude ranches that is outpacing the supply of such places, RMI officials said.

“Ranches tend to drive our whole program, maybe just behind national parks in popularity,” Box said.

Why all the fuss for visitors who make up just 5 percent to 7 percent of tourists in the region? International guests spend on average five times as much money and time here than domestic guests, Wilgus said.

And for the 34 U.S. suppliers trying to sell their region, hotel or product, it’s more economical to bring Europeans here than pay for marketing there.

United Airlines provided airfare, lodging was complimentary at the Coeur d’Alene Resort, and Kelly’s gave away mechanical bull rides.

“There’s nothing like taking somebody into your home and showing them what you have to offer,” DiGiammarco said. “That’s what we are doing.”

, DataTimes MEMO: Cut in the Spokane edition