Anyone who needed validation that there were more people in the county in June need look no further than the visitation numbers for the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

The National Park Service said June visitation numbers at the park were at 160,281, up 18.7 percent from a year ago. The numbers are gathered by vehicle counts at the major destination centers in the park, including the Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive, the Dune Climb, the Coast Guard Station Museum near Glen Haven, the Esch Road beach-end, and Platte River mouth. Overnight stays at the campgrounds and visitors to the Manitou islands are also counted.

Overall, Lakeshore visitor numbers for the first half of the year are up 12.8 percent, from 244,583 last year to 275,862.

Tom Davison, who collects the visitor data for Sleeping Bear and sends it to the NPS, said he wasn’t surprised that the numbers were surging.

“We’ve had better weather so far this year, that is for sure,” he said.

A breakdown of June visitor numbers shows there was a significant increase in overnight tent camping stays. A total of 9,126 tent overnight stays were counted in the park’s major campgrounds, up 40 percent from June 2009. Recreational vehicle overnight stays, meanwhile, were down 31.1 percent to 4,729 for June. Backcountry campground overnight stays were up by 7.5 percent for June 2010 to 2,866.

Phil Deering, who owns and operates Deering’s Market and Garden Center in Empire, said Tuesday that business for early and mid-June was about the same as last year, but picked up substantially toward the end of the month.

“The July 4 holiday weekend was fantastic. We had people everywhere. But, most of June was about the same as last year, maybe a little more,” he said.

Bonnie Nescot keeps the books for Art’s Tavern and is treasurer for the Glen Lake Chamber of Commerce, and said there’s been far more people in Glen Arbor this summer.

“What we’re seeing, at least at our place, is more people coming into Glen Arbor for destination weddings. A lot of that is because of the Homestead has improved their wedding facilities and they are bringing in whole families for up to a week at a time,” she said. “June used to be just graduations, now it’s all about weddings.”

Nescot said she wasn’t surprised the park numbers were also up. “The weather has been so much better this summer as compared to last year. Glen Arbor has just been plain busy since mid-June,” she said.
Jamie Jewell, senior manager for sales at The Homestead resort located just north of Glen Arbor, said the resort improved its wedding/banquet facilities three years ago. “Our biggest venue could hold about 100 people. We added to it and now we can have 180 people in that same spot,” she said.

The resort has two smaller halls that will hold up to 50 people each, plus its Mountain Flowers hall that holds 180. “We host wedding ceremonies at the top of our ski hill, so people can ride up the ski lift. It has a fantastic view of Lake Michigan and South Manitou Island,” she said. “We had 10 weddings in May and have 64 more scheduled through the end of the season in October. We can host a wedding anytime of the year, but summer is definitely our busy time.”