LANSING – Comerica Bank’s tourism index showed Michigan tourism is at its lowest point since the last recession in 2001, while an index tracked by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation showed Michigan is ranked last in the nation for hotel occupancy so far this year.

The Comerica index, which measures travel, lodging and entertainment spending, dropped to 94 for the third quarter of 2008, down from 95 for second quarter. But the index has held two points below 2007 consistently through the year, officials said.

“Our tourism index has been trending lower for the past three years, reflecting the ongoing weakness in the state’s economy,” said Dana Johnson, Chief Economist at Comerica Bank. “The main risk is that this downtrend will accelerate in upcoming quarters, reflecting the deepening national recession and the spillover to the Michigan economy. Tourism is a discretionary outlay that may suffer disproportionately large cutbacks in the difficult economic environment that has taken hold.”

Dave Morris, travel researcher for the MEDC, said the state agency has seen similar trends. Another index the state receives showed so far this year Michigan is last among the 50 states for hotel room occupancy at an average 54.8 percent. The national average for year to date is 62.8 percent, he said.

But Morris said the numbers were an indication of the national economy, not that the state’s tourism advertising campaigns were not working.

“When you’re doing advertising in more distant markets it takes a couple of years of consistent spending,” he said. “There’s some momentum that needs to be built up in these marketing campaigns.”

He said tourism spending in the state could still drop, even if the campaigns are successfully drawing new people to the state.

Morris said the state should also prepare to lose some tourism-related businesses with the drop in spending.

“Tourism has always been mom and pop industry that operates on the margin,” he said. “The businesses that are on the thinnest margin are the ones that are going to start to falter.”

But if spending does start to increase, he said the industry can grow pretty quickly to fill any gaps in supply, he said.

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