Gulf Shores, AL – Tourists spent almost $100 million less visiting Alabama's main tourist beaches last year than the year before the Gulf oil spill.
The vice president for Gulf Shores-Orange Beach tourism agency, Mike Foster, said Friday that $144 million was spent in the beach communities of Orange Beach, Gulf Shores and Fort Morgan in 2010. That compares to $241 million in 2009, the year before the spill.
Foster calls the difference ``very significant,'' and he says it shows people stayed away from beach communities because of the oil spill.
He says the number doesn't include people who made a one-day trip to the shore.
State tourism officials say a million fewer people visited Alabama's beaches in 2010 than in 2009.
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