May 31--Cook Inlet Region Inc.'s profits soared in 2000. But the local Native corporation's record numbers masked the company's battered tourism business. 

The Anchorage-based company's tourism business posted an $11 million operating loss last year, a $1.3 million loss in 1999 and a $752,000 loss in 1998 as revenue stumbled and its costs climbed, according to the company's annual report released last week. 

CIRI executives declined repeated interview requests about the tourism business over the past 10 days. Chief executive Carl Marrs, chief operating officer Mark Kroloff and vice president of tourism Dennis Brandon will not be available to talk until after the CIRI's annual meeting Saturday, said spokeswoman Alison Knox. 

CIRI began an aggressive push into the tourism business in 1997, when it announced plans to spend $75 million to $100 million over five years. That year, the company invested in boat tours in Prince William Sound and the Kenai Fjords areas. Over the next two years, CIRI built a hotel for tourists in Talkeetna, purchased a hotel in Seward, and invested in a Las Vegas resort. The company also built Anchorage's largest RV park. 

Last year, CIRI's tourism businesses brought in $12.1 million in revenue, down 27 percent from a year earlier. Tourism's operating expenses totaled $23.1 million, up 29 percent. 

The annual report outlines what is bleeding the nascent, far-flung operation. 

The company said its share of the losses from the 500-room Hyatt Regency Lake Las Vegas Resort totaled $6.2 million. The company said it expected to lose money in the resort's early years; the hotel opened in late 1999. 

Its Alaska tourism operations lost $4.8 million, according to the annual report. "Overall visitor count and tourism revenue were down in Alaska in 2000, and the effect was felt by CIRI's sightseeing cruise operations," the annual report said. 

Last year, the number of visitors statewide grew more slowly than in the past, said Tina Lindgren, president of the Alaska Travel Industry Association, nonprofit trade organization that promotes tourism on behalf of the state and tourism businesses. She expects the tepid pace to continue in 2001. 

Stan Stephens, who sold his Prince William Sound Cruises and Tours to CIRI in 1997 and still runs the business for the owners, says his business has slowed in recent years. 

He says the Sound tours still make money, but "it's not anything you'd call a decent profit." 

CIRI reported its Seward and Talkeetna hotels filled up in 1999, prompting current expansion work at both hotels. The company's Alaska booking operations were consolidated last year to help improve efficiency. 

The company has also committed to invest $19.5 million in a 750-room resort in the Phoenix area. 

The tourism wart is one of the few blemishes in what was an otherwise bright year for CIRI. 

On revenue of $380 million, the company had a record $102 million in profits, largely due to a huge windfall from an investment in wireless communications. The company also reported strong growth in its construction business. In 1999, CIRI reported profits of $57 million. 

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(c) 2001, Anchorage Daily News, Alaska. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.