Visitors to park

Visitors to park

GATLINBURG, Tenn.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park says more than 4.3 million people visited between January and June, an 8 percent increase from the first half of 2014.

More than 1 million people visited in May, the most for May since the National Park Service began tracking monthly visitation in 1979.

More than 100,000 people camped in one of the park’s nine campgrounds, an increase of 14 percent from last year, and more than 55,000 camped in the park’s backcountry, a 12 percent increase from 2014.

The park had its busiest year in 14 years last year, when 10 million visited, including the most October visitors in 27 years.

Las Vegas visitors

LAS VEGAS

Tourism officials say more than 21 million people have visited Las Vegas in the first half of 2015, about 1.5 percent more than a year ago when the destination recorded more than 40 million travelers for the first time.

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority said 3.5 million people visited in June representing a 2.4 percent increase compared to a year ago.

The agency says 90.4 percent of Vegas rooms were rented in the month. The number of hotel rooms has dropped by nearly 200 to 149,071 with the closure of the Riviera casino-hotel and the re-opening of the renovated Linq hotel-casino.

Rates and revenue earned per room dropped during the month. Convention attendance was down 16.6 percent in June but up 1.7 percent since January.

Geography quiz

Q. The Pyrenees Mountains run along the border of which two countries?

A. Spain and France. The highest point is Aneto at a little more than 11,000 feet.

Tourism numbers

CHARLESTON, S.C.

As the summer tourist season begins to wind down, the numbers show it’s been another good year for South Carolina’s $18 billion tourism industry.

Figures posted by the state Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism show that through the first half of 2015, room occupancy and average room rates were both up in the state. Meanwhile, revenue per available room, a key indicator of industry health, was up more than 8 percent over last year.

The figures were compiled by STR, Inc., a company that tracks tourism trends.

The average room rate in South Carolina in June was $122, about a dollar more than the national average.

STR is forecasting modest growth in room occupancy in South Carolina through the end of the summer.

Combined dispatches