TRAVEL/TOURISM: Hospitality is still under the weather

It's usually the losers who say, "Wait'll next year." But state tourism officials consider last year a winner, and they're eager for another one.

One of those people is Lynn Minges, executive director of the N.C. Division of Tourism, Film and Sports Development since December. She points to

a 17% increase in 2000 visitor inquiries over the year before, when tourists spent $11.4 billion in the state. Welcome-center visits, another barometer, had increased 8.6% through October. "We've noticed pretty good growth throughout the state," she says. Even gas prices that were about a quarter a gallon higher than the year before didn't stop travelers. "We had some reports of some slowness over the summer along the coast, but that picked up in the fall."

Minges wasn't alone in her optimism. Jim Hobbs, president of the 378member North Carolina Hotel & Motel Association, says western North Carolina fared well, despite scattered wildfires during peak fallleaf season. And he, like Minges, cites a late-season surge in beach visits. Carolyn McCormick, executive director of the Outer Banks Visitors Bureau, says tourism was up more than 16% through November, with rentals up 20% in July and 34% 6 in August from the same months a year earlier.