Evening star., 1924-07-13
TOURIST VISITORS
GROW IN NUMBER
Hotel Men and Sightseeing
Companies Well Pleased
With Summer Lists.
EXCEED RECORD OF 1923
Even Political Conventions Fail to
Draw Crowds Away From
Capital City.

Hotel men, sightseeing company
treasurers and others who cater to
visitors to the National Capital are
smiling contentedly these days. The
spring and early summer of 1924
have slid along into the gone-but-not
forgotten realm and they brought
pleasant surprises with them. The
visiting contingent of Americans who
descend annually upon the Capital
City. was not expected to show up
In the numbers they did last year,
but 10 and behold, they passed last
years mark in many instances. And
this caused the smiles.
Last year, it will be remembered,
the Shrine convention brought thou
sands and thousands to Washington
who otherwise would have gone else
where. This left a tremendous gap
to be filled. This year, the big con-
tingent was the educators. who were
expected to bring 10000, but who,
according to the whispers of the
Motel managers about town, brought
only 5000, all told. Nevertheless, this
was quite a big drop in the visiting
bucket for Washington.
Exceeds Last Year.
While exact figures are not yet
available for visitors traffic in Wash
lngton, 1t is believed that the stream
was just trifle larger and great
deal steadier than last year. A sur
Vey of locaal hotels indicates that the
house count" by months ran closer
to a straight line than last year.
There was a notable falling OFF.
however, in the automobile tourist
parties. Some hotel men blame the
weeks and weeks of rain that made
good roads bad and bad roads i'm
passable for the low figures. They're
expected later in the summer. The
late July and August fleets of tour
deficiency. This, however, was not
as serious a detection as the group
tourist partieS-the persons who come
on personally directed tours.
Conventions Took Tourists.
About town, among those who have
their fingers on the pulse of the
transient population. it is being
parties have not come anywhere near
the point, in so far as numbers are
concerned, as they did in 1928. Some
blame the presidential year with its
attendant conventions in New York
and Chicago. Thousands of people.
watched the Democrats fighting in
Madison Square Garden than see the
Capitol serenely standing on the old
hill it has graced SO long. So, many
went to New York.
But the individual tourists-those
who come and stay week-in parties
of possibly two or three or four, sent
the mark far and away into the
right side of the ledger. For some
reason or other, lots of individuals
came to Washington on sightseeing
junkets this year. and to this group
goes the credit for filing the breach.
Excurxions Helped Out.
Then there were a batch of special
excursion trains running down from
New York and nearby points through
out the early spring that speeded up
business for the sightseeing COM
panies as well as for the Union sta
ton.
No official count was kept on the
number of visitors to Washington,
but by comparing records at hotels it
is estimated that at least 10000 a
month showed up during May and
June at any rate, while July already
shows an appreciable Improvement
over last year.