The lodging business in Pulaski County, Mo., hasn’t been adversely affected by higher fuel prices, reports the Waynesville Daily Guide.
Pulaski County tourism officials also made that encouraging observation this spring, and business appeared to stay up during the summer.
Officials made other observations:
“We’ve been pretty happy with our year. It’s been real solid as opposed to a lot of areas I know I’ve talked to that have been down,” said board member and hotel owner Bruce Farris. “The gas hasn’t really affected us much; that’s the good news.”
Board chairwoman Twyla Cordry agreed, and said even though some people aren’t driving long distances for vacations, others are changing their method of travel. That seems to be helping local hotels, she said.
“I think a lot of people are probably driving now, even with gas prices, over flying,” Cordry said. […]
“In Rolla, where we don’t have the military except for overflow, I think we’re seeing a lot more people from interstate travel,” Farris said. “We’re up in Rolla too … in this part of Missouri, we’re doing pretty well in the hotel business.”
That’s much better than the Branson area where board members said show owners are “practically begging us to come to their shows” with discount coupons.
It’d be awfully presumptuous to attribute Pulaski County’s strong lodging business to Route 66 travelers. I think Interstate 44 being a major east-west highway is a bigger factor (and Branson doesn’t have that corridor). But Mother Road tourism sure didn’t hurt, either.
We went to Springfield/Bolivar last week where gas was $2.59 when we got there on Friday and $2.46 when we left on Sunday.
On the way home, we heard on the radio (national news) that the lowest gas in the country was in Wichita at $2.79 a gallon.
We laughed for several miles.