After a rough winter season last year, New Hampshire tourism officials predict nearly seven million people will visit the state between now and the end of February.
The state Division of Travel and Tourism Development says those tourists are expected to spend $860 million, which would be up by 9 percent over last year.
Those figures come from the Institute for New Hampshire Studies.
With historically low snow numbers last season, the ski and winter tourism industries took a financial hit. But Tourism spokesman Tai Freligh says it’s still early in the season and there’s no reason to think the same thing will happen again.
“A lot of the ski resorts are already open, a lot of them opened over the Thanksgiving holiday, and we’ve had some more open up. One of the things that’s great about the Northeast and New Hampshire specially is we have man-made snow and some of the best in the Northeast so I think we’re covered.”
Freligh says his office is working to get the word out earlier this year about snow on the slopes.