A recent survey on tourism found that optimism is growing among Thousand Islands area businesses.

Of the 170 “usable” responses from U.S. and Canadian business owners gathered by the 100 Islands Tourism Council, 65 percent predicted that the tourism industry would improve over the next five years and only 8 percent said they anticipated a decline.

Last year, 47 percent of responders predicted an improvement, 36 percent said they believed things would remain status quo and 12 percent had a negative outlook on growth in the Thousand Islands.

Gary S. DeYoung, executive director of the 1000 Islands International Tourism Council, said he thinks people are noticing a lot of development proposed along the river and becoming more optimistic about the region’s future.

“In almost every town, there’s a neat thing moving forward,” he said in reference to Krog Corp.’s $26 million hotel development in Clayton, Brockville’s Aquatarium and many other projects proposed in the Thousand Islands region.

Low water levels and high gas prices largely drew negative comments from area business owners, but 77 percent responded that the dry and sunny summer weather had a positive impact on the region’s tourism.

Other than that, Mr. DeYoung said, the region had “pretty normal year” with the overall satisfaction rate remaining the same as last year at 80 percent.

The full survey report is available online at the 1000 Islands Tourism Council’s website: www.ticouncil.com.

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