The financial crunch taking its toll in other parts of the country is affecting the number of tourists coming to the Teche Area.

The number of people visiting the Iberia Parish Convention and Visitor’s Bureau welcome center on Louisiana 14 in October was 20 percent fewer compared to the same month last year, said Fran Thibodeaux, executive director of the bureau.

The Tabasco factory at the McIlhenny Co. on Avery Island welcomed 1,850 fewer visitors last month compared to October 2007, said Angie Schaubert, McIlhenny Co. senior manager of brand sales.

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“You have to keep in mind we had back-to-back hurricanes and this economic crisis is like a third hurricane for us,” Thibodeaux said. “I have been reading reports and many major organizations are predicting decreases in leisure travel because people just clam up with leisure travel when they are unsure of what’s on the horizon.”

Tabasco, too, is bracing for flat numbers.

“We are not expecting anything great as far as high numbers visiting for the first half of 2009,” Schaubert said. “I think people in other parts of the country are being hit pretty hard.”

Pat Kahle, director of the Shadows-on-the-Teche, said before September’s hurricanes, through-the-roof gas prices and fallout of the national economy, visitors to the historic home had reached 90 percent of pre-Katrina numbers.

Thibodeaux said hurricanes Gustav and Ike have affected the area’s tourism more than hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005.

Sandy Davis, co-owner of the Conrad Rice Mill, the nation’s oldest operating rice mill, agreed with Thibodeaux. She said after Gustav and Ike there has been a greater decrease in visitors than after Sept. 11, 2001, Hurricane Andrew or Hurricane Katrina.

In the two months since the storms, visitation has leveled off at the Shadows-on-the-Teche, except for a marked increase in European travelers, Kahle said, who have the exchange rate advantage at this time.

“Still, the increase is not enough to make up for the numbers we are losing from our other categories of usual visitors,” she said.

Schaubert said current trends in the area’s tourism are a combination effect from the storms, economic situation and, until recently, record high gas prices.

Thibodeaux said there has been an increase, however, in the amount of in-state travelers visiting the welcome center as well and those taking day trips from neighboring states.

Thibodeaux said occupancy rates at local hotels are still strong at 62 percent but are due in large part to “brisk business travel, relief workers and evacuees.”