Winter visitor boom in full effect

During this time of year, we start seeing our winter visitors come to the desert southwest, but in recent years the amount of people that have come down have decreased. That is, until now.

News 11 spoke with local RV parks along with ‘Visit Yuma’ to get information on the recent boom.

RV parks in Yuma are seeing an increase this year because of the Canadian currency rate. At one point last year, the Canadian dollar was poor, in the mid to low 60’s. Now it’s up to 78 cents to the dollar and the fact that it has improved means great things for our economy as RV parks are seeing less cancellations and more bookings. Local RV parks such as ‘Glenaire Mobile Home’ and ‘Westward Village’ are almost at full capacity and it’s not even prime season yet.

“Winter visitors come in all different forms, most of them do travel in motor homes and stay in the rv parks, so we stay in really close contact with the rv parks and they let us know how their doing as far as occupancy and some of them are reporting either at capacity or near capacity,” said Linda Morgan, Executive Director for ‘Visit Yuma.’

Another reason for the boom? The recent tragedies across the country with natural disasters have left people leaving areas like Florida and Texas; Once prime vacation spots for visitors, Yuma has now become their new vacation area for the winter season.