Abstract

The economic impact of Canadian tourists on the city of Spokane was examined during a weekend in November and the results extrapolated for all of November. Marketing suggestions are made in light of the results of the study. Spokane, with its 170,000 inhabitants, lies only two hours by car south of the Canadian border and serves as the major shopping center in an area which easily reaches more than 100 miles in each direction. Despite Spokane’s proximity to Canada, no attempt has ever been made to assess the impact of the Canadian market on the city’s economy. The survey reported here had as its goal providing the business community of Spokane with the number and description of Canadian visitors, how much they spent, and how they spent it, as well as making some marketing suggestions. METHODOLOGY The study was conducted in two stages. In the first stage students enrolled at Washington State University counted and recorded 296 Canadian license plates at lodging properties, all shopping centers, major parking lots and in downtown streets in Spokane on November 13, 1982. At that time a prepared questionnaire was left under the windshield wipers. In the second stage, through the cooperation of some of the lodging operators, listed in the 1982 edition of the Spokane Area Convention and Visitors ’ Bureau publi-cation, &dquo;A Visitor’s Guide to Spokane Country,&dquo; 229 home addresses of Canadian tourists staying in hotels and motels were collected. (Because the addresses came from different types of operations-from large hotels to small motels-a bias was not likely.) Then 229 questionnaires were sent, together with stamped return envelopes, to these addresses. In a computer cross-check eight license plates appeared twice and were eliminated from the results. No effort was made to increase the number of license plates because some cars had moved to a location which was already surveyed or were in transit. Therefore, the results presented in the next section can be considered conservative. Concern over response rates is always present in a mail survey. Dillman (1978) remarked that &dquo;three things... must be done to maximize survey response: Lothar A. Kreck is at Washington State University, Pullman,