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Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore prepping for big summer after last year’s record-breaking totals

Lake Superior as seen from the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. After a record-setting year in 2020, Alger County tourism officials are predicting another great year in 2021 for visitors to the lakeshore. (Journal file photo)

MARQUETTE — Last summer with the pandemic at its height, the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in Munising set tourism records with over 1.2 million visitors. There has been an upward trend in numbers over the past few years, with nearly 860,000 visitors in 2019 the previous record.

The Greater Munising Bay Partnership/Alger County Chamber of Commerce plays a big part in the preparation for the season in the area, and CEO Dr. Kathy Reynolds doesn’t know exactly what to expect for numbers heading into 2021.

“It’s hard to tell because last year, a big part of it was people were looking for a place to go. The one thing about the outdoors is that it’s open, it’s not a business, it doesn’t have to deal at all with whether businesses are closed,” Reynolds said. “So with things opening up, and (people) out there traveling nationally and even internationally, are some of the people going back to the places that they’ve gone before?”

The expectation is that many visitors could be heading back to amusement parks or different cities that they had gone before, she said. On the other side of that coin with the vaccination process well underway, there could be people that didn’t want to come last year, that will return this summer. What is known is that there will be many visitors with the recent trend in numbers, but what isn’t known is if the 2020 record will be broken.

“We’re predicting that it’s going to be another really good year, whether it’s as much as last year or not, is still to be seen, I guess you could say,”she said. “We could do the same as we did last year, we could do a little less, we could do better. It’s hard to say and with the way things have gone over the last year, everything changes and people’s perceptions change all the time.”

Even though there’s still much uncertainty heading into the warm weather months, there’s more excitement this year with how the preparation will proceed, Reynolds said.

Getting outside to enjoy what the lakeshore has to offer has also become a huge selling point, but there’s no way to tell how much an impact the ongoing pandemic will have.

“I would say we’re always excited before the season hits every year,” she said. I don’t know if it’s an excitement of more preparation or an anticipation of the possibility that it could be that much again,

“We certainly still think that it’s an attractive idea to go places that offer an outdoor experience, a natural resource experience, but it’s just really hard to tell right now.

“And we have increased certain percentages, we’ve gone up every year really for 10 years.”

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