While the boost that the falling dollar has given to U.S. exports has been chronicled widely, the greenbacks slide has affected other types of businesses besides exporters of manufactured goods.


Thats especially being felt in Spokane, which is so near to the Canadian border it has become a destination as our neighbors to the north exercise the newfound spending power of their own currency to make their bucks go farther.


So-called mall crawlsadult shoppers equivalent of twentysomethings pub crawlsare gaining popularity with Canadians looking for deals in the U.S., the Calgary Herald reported recently.


They shop like mad, Jason Wyn, a reservation agent with Anderson Vacations, which offers mall crawls across the border, told the Calgary newspaper. I have never seen so many shopping bags stuffed into bus storage in my life. In a trip to Spokane in November, two busloads of 100 people from across Alberta spent more than $30,000 over three nights and four days on clothing, toys, and electronics, the Herald said.


So many Canadian shoppers poured out of buses at the Fred Meyer store, at 400 S. Thor, on one such visit that an observer said he decided to come back later to shop.


Meanwhile, Spokane-area innkeepers are harvesting a rich harvest of reservations as Canadians come to shop and play here.


This year we probably tripled our Canadian shopping business, says Meredith Rainville, general manager of the Travelodge Hotel, located in downtown Spokane at 33 W. Spokane Falls Boulevard. The hotel accommodates shoppers and other Canadian guests by offering currency-exchange services on site, she says.


We have been doing a little bit more marketing, but not enough, Rainville says. The value of the dollar has made a big impact; also, the Travelodge brand in Canada is very well-known.


Chris Woods, general sales manager at Mirabeau Park Hotel & Convention Center, in Spokane Valley, says Canadians are feeling wealthier and are taking leisure vacations to the states.


When the weather clears up and the Spokane areas golf courses open, therell be a lot of Canadian duffers on the links, for many already have made reservations for golfing trips, Woods says.


More Canadian golf groups are coming here, and will play at both county-operated and private courses around the area, he says.


The Inland Automobile Association-AAA has had record growth at its travel operation here the last two yearsincluding on international tripsdespite predictions that foreign travel by U.S. citizens will drop, says Lynda Broberg, its regional travel manager. One of the areas in which AAA is seeing a significant rise in popularity is cruise bookings, the price of which typically are all-inclusive, giving travelers a way to control their costs.


Yet, Ambassadors Group Inc., a Spokane company thats heavily dependent on foreign-travel programs, is bleeding badly.


James L. Bellessa Jr., an analyst with Great Falls, Mont.-based D.A. Davidson & Co., the regional brokerage company, says Ambassadors Group has been hit particularly hard by the dollars plunge against foreign currencies. The company announced in October a 30 percent drop in enrollment for its 2008 programs.


Higher costs in the foreign currency need to be reflected in higher tuitions, and higher tuitions have broken the back of the companys growth momentum, Bellessa says.


The ill effects of the falling dollar will continue through this year, says Chadwick Byrd, CFO for the Ambassadors Group.


We travel over 80 percent of our individuals internationally. The dollar has devalued 10 to 20 percentwe need to take that into consideration when we are pricing our programs, Byrd says.


He says once Ambassadors sets its prices for the next summers programs, it begins implementing currency-hedging strategies to protect against changes in currency values. It usually plans to be 80 percent hedged by the end of the year, but is virtually 100 percent hedged for 2008s programs.


For now, if the dollar weakens further we wont be negatively impacted by that, but if it strengthens we dont get the benefit of that, either, Byrd says.


Those people signing up with us, not a lot of them have traveled internationally before. They havent necessarily been hit by the impact of the dollar directly, so as they go to travel to London and want to buy a latte or Big Mac they would see a big difference; thats where theyll start to realize the value of the U.S. dollar, Byrd says.


Rich Hadley, president of Greater Spokane Incorporated, says the weaker dollar is a benefit to manufacturers such as Pearson Packaging Systems, of Spokane, that sell goods internationally. On the negative side, though, Hadley says, companies that send people on business trips outside the country regularly or that buy imported materials for manufacturing or other business uses face steeper costs.


Obviously, this works both ways, he says. From a business standpoint, if youre sending a lot of people out traveling, such as in sales departments, or theyre going on sister city programs, its going to be tougher on American visitors, he says.


Quite small businesses that depend on items from overseas also can be hurt. For example, at Saads Shoe Repair, in Spokane, the price of imported leather for soles has skyrocketed in the past year, says Bill Ogle, who has worked for that business for 24 years. It was pretty steady before that, Ogle says, and shipping was free. The higher cost of the imported materials along with shipping costs fueled by higher gas prices has forced the company to raise its prices, he says.


Of course, manufacturers that export what they produce are enjoying the more competitive prices at which they can sell goods overseas.


Lee Tate, president of Tate Technology Inc., a Spokane-based contract electronic manufacturer, says his company has benefited from the high cost of foreign production as the Euro relentlessly has gained strength against the dollar, resulting in more manufacturing work being done in the U.S.


We had a customer contact us from the UK who said, We sell a lot of our stuff in the U.S. We can no longer afford to build it in Europe because the dollar is so weak. Its so much more expensive to build overseas, Tate says.


Agricultural exports, helped by crop failures overseas in some cases, also have been boosted by the dollars weakness, says Fred Dickson, chief market strategist for D.A Davidson, in Lake Oswego, Ore.


What were finding is with the dollar falling in value, foreign buyers come in and our goods look very attractive to them, Dickson says. They increase their buying of produce. Particularly, Chinese buyers are buying at what appears to be bargain basement prices. Prices here go up, but it doesnt affect their prices.


He says theres a domestic downside to the strong foreign agricultural sales, too. Its good for farmers, but not for domestic buyers of that (item) for feed.


Meanwhile, imports of consumer goods havent necessarily fallen off, and their prices havent begun to rise yet, indicating that foreign manufacturers are eating the difference, Dickson says.


Contact Jeanne Gustafson at (509) 344-1264 or via e-mail at jeanneg@spokanejournal.com.