The Spokane-Coeur dAlene area is expected to reap some benefits from the weakening U.S. dollar by attracting additional foreign tourists, industry leaders here say. Spokane might not, however, surpass the banner year it has had this year, when it has hosted several large events including the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, says Kevin Twohig, executive director of the Spokane Public Facilities District.


The Spokane Chiefs hockey team and the Spokane Shock arena football team are drawing consistently big crowds to the Spokane Arena, Twohig says. He says the Shock expects to play to sold-out crowds for its third straight season next year.


The outlook for use of Spokanes public facilities is for slower growth in 2008 as the community relies more on such local events, Twohig says.


With the new expansion, the Spokane Convention Center is about where he would expect, Twohig says. He anticipates an average upcoming year for the convention center, with more dates and larger conventions beginning to be booked for 2009 and 2010. Twohig says it takes time for the use of a new facility like Spokanes to ramp up.


Convention Center General Manager Johnna Boxley says the facility already is enticing some larger events for the upcoming year that will be new to the area. Others, such as the Washington state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instructions conference, which attracts about 3,200 attendees, previously had been held here, but had outgrown Spokanes facilities. The OSPI conference will be returning to the convention center for 2008, she says.


Jeanna Hofmeister, vice president and director of destination marketing for the Spokane Regional Convention and Visitors Bureau, says its hoped that the convention center draws visitors who will use 11,000 hotel room nights in 2007 by the time totals are added up for this year. Such a number would represent just a small part of the 1.36 million hotel room nights used here through October 2007, which is up from 1.26 million at the same time last year.


Hofmeister says she expects use of hotel room nights to continue to rise here in 2008 as the Spokane-Coeur dAlene area benefits from increased international travel from Canada and Europe and as regional residents take shorter trips because of higher fuel prices.


She says the strength of foreign currency is a key to increased tourism traffic from Canada and Europe, as are additional flights into the region from foreign destinations, such as direct Air France flights from Paris to Seattle. Hofmeister says foreign travelers typically tend to stay longer and spend more$8 to every $1 that American tourists spendand often visit Spokane as a jumping-off point to see certain national parks.


Coeur dAlene expects continued growth in hotel revenues and has a number of events coming in the first quarter of 2008 to offset the slower winter season, says Jonathan Coe, president and general manager of the Coeur dAlene Chamber of Commerce. He says that Gym Fest, a gymnastics competition scheduled for February, is a large draw for visitors from the Western Washington.


Coe says North Idaho led the state with a 13 percent rise in hotel revenues through June, and has enjoyed similar growth in the months since then.