U.P. Tourism Survey

A local nonprofit group is studying who’s coming to the U.P. on vacation and what tourists are doing while they’re here.

Northern Initiatives of Marquette is sending out its summer visitors survey.

Christine Rector, the group’s director of regional strategies, says 20,000 copies will be in the field by this weekend.

She says the surveys will be found anywhere that visitors to the region are likely to gather, from hotels to restaurants to tourist attractions like Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore and Tahquamenon Falls State Park.

Northern Initiatives has done the surveys since 2010.

Rector says the surveys have shown that there’s been a shift in the reasons why people are coming to the Upper Peninsula, from mainly visiting family members to exploring the region’s natural beauty.