The New Year is here, and changes are a-brewing!  While we all face economic and social changes, we need to view them as opportunities.  Our country will be presided over by the first black President in history and he’ll need to steer us through some tough economic waters.  No matter your political philosophy, I hope you’ll wish our new President good luck and support his efforts to get us back on track.

The tourism industry suffered some downturns due to historically high energy prices.  The good news is that those prices are now lower than we’ve seen in over 10 years.  Wow! What a ride!  I remain hopeful that gasoline prices will remain at least reasonable and that folks who hesitated to go on extended vacations will begin to start looking at their travel plans again.

One of the bright spots for Custer Country last year was the increase in foreign visitors to the region.  While there are no official statistics available that show exactly what the increase was, my conversations with tour operators and hoteliers in the region lead me to believe that they are seeing more customers from Europe, Japan and Canada.  This trend is predicted to continue in the next several years, despite current economic conditions.

As I write this, we are doing the final edits on the 2009 Custer Country Vacation Guide.  It will be ready for distribution by mid-February and we’re all excited about the new edition.  We try to improve the guide each year and I think we’ve succeeded again.  Gloria and Milt Wester and their staff at the Laurel Outlook do a great job with the production of ads and page layouts for the guide and I appreciate the pride they put into the effort.  I want to thank the advertisers who continue to support the guide.  I truly believe it’s a great way to promote your tourism business.

If you were to ask my advice as to how to face the coming year, I would urge you to take on a positive attitude.  It’s easy to be negative when you hear about bail-outs, lay-offs and the weakening dollar, but we have to keep in mind that we live in the greatest country in the world and we’ll get through it.  Some predictions say that things could start turning around as soon as mid-year and others say we’ll see a bright light at the end of the tunnel (no, it won’t be a train coming at us) within 18 months.  I think if we dwell on the positive, we’ll come out of this stronger than we went in.

To those of you who are getting this email and haven’t visited Custer Country yet, I offer my personal invitation to plan a visit soon.  To everyone everywhere, I say thanks for making this e-newsletter a bigger success than we hoped for.  I appreciate the comments you’ve sent with suggestions, criticisms and positive comments. If you if know someone who isn’t getting the newsletter but might like to, send them the link and they’ll be able to sign up. 
I wish you all a prosperous New Year.  Keep smiling.  It’s infectious and we could use a smile epidemic.