Tourism in the Spokane-Coeur dAlene area should flourish next year, thanks in part to some major sporting attractions that will draw visitors here and an expansion under way at Silverwood Theme Park.


The long-awaited National Figure Skating Championships will come to Spokane in January, and one of the regional mens NCAA basketball tournaments will be held here in March.


Yet, Eric Sawyer, executive director of the Spokane Regional Sports Commission, says the event that provides the biggest economic boost, at least on a sustaining basis, will be the annual Pacific Northwest Club Volleyball Qualifying Tournament.


That event will bring 6,000 girls, ages 12 through 19, here over the last weekend of March and the first weekend in April, says Sawyer. The tournament has been growing since it launched here 10 years ago, he says, and the opening of the Group Health Exhibit Hall at the expanded Spokane Convention Center has doubled the number of volleyball courts on which the tournament can be played.


We are limited only by the number of courts we have available, Sawyer says.


Silverwood, which drew nearly 500,000 visitors last year, is confident it will draw even more visitors this year, says Nancy DiGiammarco, marketing director. Expansion of the theme park located north of Coeur dAlene will include a second 22,000-square-foot wave pool, a 40-foot-high mountain with a 14-foot-wide water tube, and an expanded area for small children, she says.


DiGiammarco says about 75 percent of all visitors to the park come from outside the area, meaning they need housing, meals, and other amenities provided by Spokane-Coeur dAlene businesses. She says many of Silverwoods visitors stay more than one night.


Harry Sladich, president and CEO of the Spokane Regional Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB), says hotel room occupancy is the most important indicator of tourism growth in the community. Occupancy statistics are strong so far this year and should be even better next year, in part because of sporting attractions, he says.


Room-occupancy figures for Spokane County are at a four-year high of 63.5 percent so far this year, and their growth rate in Spokane County, of 4.1 percent over the first 10 months of the year, is higher than for any other county in the state, Sladich says.


Of the figure-skating championships, he says, Its definitely an event thats coming at the right time of the year when we need it the most. Occupancy rates here were only 43 percent in January this year, but could bump up to 60 percent in January 2007 because of the 10-day skating event, he says.


The CVB says about 107 conventions and events have been booked in Spokane County next year and will have an economic impact of an estimated $60 million for the community.