REGIONAL REPORT / NERVOUS NORTHEAST : Leafy States Rake In Tourists, Not Cash

Robert and Dawn Cimino stood above a mile-long gorge here, gazing at the brilliant array of fall foliage colors that dotted the mountains in the distance.

“It’s breathtaking,” said Robert Cimino, who along with his wife traveled here from New Jersey to catch a glimpse of northern New England’s celebrated autumn colors.

“We do have leaves in New Jersey, but they’re just not this beautiful,” Dawn Cimino said.

The fall foliage, which many natives described as vintage quality, coupled with Indian summer weather, brought hundreds of thousands of travelers to Vermont, New Hampshire and other areas of New England over the last few weekends.

The arrival of the “leaf peekers” has been a bright spot in what tourism officials throughout the region agree has been an otherwise sluggish year.

“The summer was flat,” said Barnett D. Laschever, Connecticut’s director of tourism. “ . . . It’s the general economic downtrend of the Northeast.”

A slowdown in tourism can have far-reaching effects, since the industry ranks the first- or second-largest in at least three New England states.

Tourism officials said the problem for the industry has not been a decline in visitors. Most indicators show that the number of people traveling in the region has remained steady, and in some cases exceeded last year’s totals.

But the amount of money being spent by tourists is down, officials said.

“People are very careful in how they spend their money,” said John A. Johnson, senior official with the Maine Office of Tourism.

Vickie Densmore, an official at the White Mountain Visitors’ Center in Lincoln, N.H., said she had noticed that visitors in area shops are not buying as much on impulse. “They are looking for bargains,” she said.

Kipp Miller, who runs a gift shop at the Quechee Gorge state park in this town 100 miles north of Boston, said there are more shoppers this year but “buying is more cautious.”

Some tourists at the park confirmed they are being more budget conscious as they travel. “We brought our lunch today. We would have stopped to eat” at a restaurant in other times, said Richard Sperry, visiting with his wife, Paula, from Troy, N.Y.

Visitors also are shortening their stays at tourist spots, the industry experts said. “Dual-income families are taking long weekends instead of two-week vacations,” said Chris A. Jennings, director of New Hampshire’s Office of Vacation and Travel.

But most tourism officials said there are silver linings. For instance, foreigners are spending more and their numbers appeared to increase this year. Foreign visitors have been attracted to the region by favorable exchange rates, said E. Ashley McCown, spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism.

“We enjoy them in Massachusetts, because they’re coming a longer distance so they spend more money and stay longer,” she said.

Even the economic slowdown has had its bright side, including that it has prompted many residents to vacation closer to home.

Evan Smith, director of tourism for the Newport, R.I., Convention and Tourism Bureau, said the city has fared well this year because it is accessible to the New England tourist. “You don’t have to take a four- or five-hour trip” to reach the city, he said.

The recession has also meant a boon to some sectors of the tourist industry. In Maine, “supermarkets had a pretty good summer,” said Johnson, reflecting the fact that people were having more picnics to save on food costs.

And tourist operators in general take solace in the fact that people still like to come here.

“We’re sorry people didn’t spend money” this summer, Johnson said. “But the fact that they came, we’re glad about.”