Tourism, Montana's second-largest industry, is battling its way through a double whammy.

It's not just the recession, which has affected most everyone's spending habits.

The summer of 2008 also brought record fuel prices that significantly altered tourists' driving habits.

The back-to-back problematic peak seasons have been tempered by the fact that people are still taking vacations.

But they've been doing it differently.

Yes, numbers are down. Norma Nickerson, director of the University of Montana's Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research, said nonresident visitation fell by 6.4 percent in 2008 and was predicted to drop off another 2 percent in 2009, where final numbers are not yet available.

But many tourist-related businesses say they braced for much worse numbers than they saw and think what the industry calls "staycations" - folks vacationing closer to home - helped.

Whether they came from 100 miles away or 1,000, vacationers were more budget-conscious.

"They aren't doing the extra things, the things that cost a little more," Nickerson said. It may mean fewer purchases in a gift shop, taking a hike instead of a horseback ride, camping instead of renting hotel rooms, cooking instead of eating out.

"Their spending habits have changed," Nickerson said. "But unless gas prices go through the roof, next summer should start to show a significant recovery."

Across the state, many people in the tourism industry echo those thoughts.

Western Montana

"The last 18 months have been very bizarre, and tough to track," said Racene Friede, executive director of Glacier Country, one of six regions tracked by Montana's tourism office. "It's been very nontraditional. People have not not taken vacations, they've just been doing it in different ways."

Campgrounds, Friede noted, did particularly well.

"Fish, Wildlife and Parks saw close to a 10 percent increase in campers," she said, "and our national parks visitation numbers were great." She also suspects that "staycations" helped offset the effects of the national recession.

"At our Web site, we normally don't see much activity from Montana," Friede said, "but we did see a huge jump this year. At the beginning of the summer, hits from Montana were not even in our top 10, but by July they'd jumped to No. 4."

It has impacted hotels and motels, high-end restaurants and retail outlets, Friede said, but she's heard from various properties that future bookings are looking "very, very good."

"I remain very optimistic," she said. "Does that mean we're looking at a banner year in 2010? It might take a little longer to get back to that point, but we are blessed with having Glacier Park in this part of the state - that's very much a calling card."

Eastern Montana

"We had braced ourselves for a crisis summer, but we didn't have it," said Joan Kronebusch, director of the Billings Convention and Visitors Bureau. "Yellowstone Park had great numbers, and gas prices remained friendly."

Many of the tourists, she said, came from nearby - Wyoming, and North and South Dakota.

"And we've been a big draw for people from Texas, Colorado and Minnesota," Kronebusch said. "They like our guest ranches. We saw the numbers stay strong from those three states."

The best thing going for Eastern Montana, and much of the rest of the state, is that "Montana is a deal. We are a bargain," she said.

There are plenty of free and affordable activities in the region - Pictograph Cave State Park, national monuments at the Little Bighorn Battlefield and Pompeys Pillar, the Montana Dinosaur Trail - and Billings hopes to capitalize on that.

"We hear from many peers across the United States - cities of similar sizes - that are cutting their travel promotion budgets," Kronebusch said. "We're increasing ours. We're riding out the storm very well."

North-central Montana

The two largest cities in this region are somewhat atypical.

Great Falls, for instance, saw double-digit increases in tourism in 2008, when fuel costs spiked, according to Gayle Fisher, executive director of Russell Country.

"Our big thing was Canada," Fisher said. "The Canadian exchange rate was favoring Canada after a long stretch where it hadn't, and it brought in shoppers in droves. We didn't feel the pinch."

This year has been different - the exchange rate is not as good - but Fisher said the numbers are mostly down because they climbed so high a year earlier.

"Canada does have a huge impact on us," Fisher said, "and when Glacier Park has a good year, we usually have a good year."

Glacier's centennial celebration in 2010, Fisher hopes, will draw more people traveling through the area.

In Helena, "We tend to buck the trends, even within the state," said Mike Mergenthaler, president of Gold West Country and director of the Helena Convention and Visitors Bureau.

The capital city sees a steady stream of visitors on business, especially when the Legislature is in session, and "because we're more of a government town, we don't see the big layoffs or high unemployment rates some places do," Mergenthaler said. "We seem more steady."

Summer lodging numbers were off by about 5 percent, Mergenthaler said, but "given the economy, we're very pleased with that. When we hear of other places that were down 15 to 20 percent, we feel very fortunate."

South-central Montana

Like other regions, officials say tourists have still been coming, but they're keeping a closer eye on their wallets.

"They're just not spending as much money on the ground," said Robin Hoover, executive director of Yellowstone Country, "but I'm hearing they're still here."

Yellowstone National Park is a good example.

"Yellowstone had record-setting numbers," she said. "But we did hear from the concessionaires that it wasn't necessarily reflected in retail sales or lodging. They're there, the park was full, but they weren't spending as much money."

Things outside the economy and gas prices can affect her region as well, Hoover said. Good weather during the shoulder seasons - April and May, September and October - can be a huge boost.

"In my backyard in Bozeman, I still had snow till June 19," she said. "But I'm very optimistic for several reasons."

With Ken Burns' 12-hour documentary, "The National Parks: America's Best Idea" out this fall, Hoover thinks America's oldest, Yellowstone, could see an influx of American tourists.

Plus, she said, "the economy seems to be coming back, and people still want to come here. They still are."

What probably bodes best for the state's tourism industry remains Montana itself.