LANSING- With tourism revenue down for Northern Michigan businesses, hopes are high that cold weather lasts and winter – and visitors – is here to stay.

“We’ve seen a lot of the ski areas not open to full capacity,” said Kirsten Borgstrom, media relations manager for Travel Michigan. “However, many of the resorts and communities put a spin on the winter weather and continued to draw.”

“For example, Boyne Resorts have an indoor water park and they have been promoting it more,” she said. “Luckily we are starting to dip below 28 degrees and business owners are jumping up and down because winter is here.”

Travel Michigan is the state’s official tourism promotion arm.

“We have heard numbers are down where the weather is a factor,” said Borgstrom.

However, if opportunities exist for travelers that don’t depend on cold weather, such as Boyne’s water park, they are still drawing visitors.

“Clearly, the mild start has certainly impacted tourism up here,” said Brad VanDommelen, president of the Traverse City Convention and Visitor’s Bureau. “Those that depend on snow have been impacted more.”

For Northern Michigan, where the economy depends heavily on tourism from downstate residents and other visitors, the belated winter arrived just in time.

“This is the most challenging winter I’ve had,” said Jim Bartlett, general manager of Nub’s Nob Ski Area in Harbor Springs. “However, we are not as down as you would think. We are 13 percent off versus last year’s season.”

Other ski resorts have been able to minimize the economic damage with reasonably good conditions due to machine-made snow on warmer days, said VanDommelen.

“Ski conditions have got much better recently,” he said.

The ski area in Harbor Springs was able to offer all its of the groomed slopes and trails for the first time this season on Friday, said Bartlett.

In comparison, it opened with all its slopes for the first time on Dec. 17, 2005, for the 2005-06 season.

Although his business isn’t as slow as might be feared, Bartlett said, he wished the state had done more to promote winter tourism during the warmer-than-usual period.

“I’m very disappointed in the state travel bureau,” he said. “They haven’t spent one dime on winter tourism. They have allocated 100 percent to summer tourism, even if we have a good year.

“We’re an important part of the local economy. We have something to sell,” Bartlett added.

VanDommelen said his office works with Travel Michigan and they’ve discussed expanding more into winter promotions.

“But in order to do more, they need the resources to do so,” he added.

Travel Michigan, like other state agencies, is finding it difficult to get enough funding.

“It’s important for representatives to understand how important tourism is and the benefits of state tourism,” VanDommelen said.

“We have a national quality product here,” he added. “We don’t have a product problem, we have a promotion problem.”

Organizers of local winter festivals hope people will come, but there’s some fear tourists won’t be aware they’re still going on.

“We’ve had a lot of people say, ‘Oh no, it’s not going to happen,’ but it is,” said Denise MacKenzie, a member of the Houghton Lake Tip-Up Town executive committee.

Tip-Up Town, one of the largest Northern Michigan winter festivals, began Jan. 19 and will continue Jan. 27 and 28.

There was concern, even with the cold weather, that tourists wouldn’t show up, at least for the first weekend.

“We believe the second weekend will be really good after people realize we are still going ahead,” said MacKenzie.

Typically, the festival sells between 15,000 and 20,000 badges, which serve as admission to the events, she added.

“It’s good time we got the snow when we did,” said MacKenzie. “We’ve had to cancel our vintage snowmobile racing and motorcycle ice racing, but the rest is still going to happen.”