Despite the cold and sloppy spring Wisconsin resorts found their books full of reservations as summer finally made its way to the north woods.
With record amounts of snow in April and into May, things started slowly. Lisa Marshall is with the Wisconsin Department of Tourism. She says once the weather changed, so did the number of visitors.
"It took off for our tourism industry in the first week of July, it was super strong in July and August and we anticipate that will keep going through the fall."
She says despite the slow start, they think they made up for lost time.
"We felt like it was a strong summer, we should see an increase, I don't know if it will be like the previous years of increases because a lot of that was making up from coming out of the recession. As a general overall we felt like it was a strong summer"
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James Bolen is the director of the Cable Area Chamber of Commerce. He says as soon as the weather started to cooperate, tourists headed north.
"We were concerned because April and May were quite cold, but June actually more than made up for it. We actually saw an increase in second quarter room tax over last year which was a very strong year"
He says when the summer is shorter; it seems like all the tourists come at once.
"Bayfield County had a record sales tax collection for the month of August so not only were they here but they were spending money while they were here."
Heidi Overman is the manager at Lakewoods Resort in Cable. She says slowly things are still picking up from the recession, but she sees a rebound.
"Having snow storms in May, it pushed everything back a few weeks, but right now it's still going good. We have golf groups coming throughout the rest of this month and the start of next month."
She is expecting the hunting season to at least meet last year's numbers but it depends on Mother Nature. "As long as the snow falls we should have a good winter with lots of snowmobiling."
