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If a space visitor could look down on the lower Kenai River on any given July morning, it would likely be confused.

Below, it would see hundreds, if not thousands of fishermen, many of whom had traveled great distances and spent immense amounts of currency, to huddle in tight clusters at the mouth of a cold river in the hopes of catching a species of fish that aren't even actively feeding anymore.

Silly as it sounds, sportfishing in the central peninsula is a massive economic engine.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game recently published a report on the economic impact of sportfishing across the state.

While figures we're not available specifically for the Kenai River, they were broken down by region.

Of interest for the central peninsula is the massive impact the Cook Inlet region has on the sportfish economic impact.

Total angler expenditures for the Southcentral region closed in on $989 million in 2007. Compare that to the state's total angler expenditures of just under $1.4 billion and the anglers fishing in the Southcentral region contributed up to 71 percent of all angler expenditures in Alaska in 2007.

Additionally, of the 15,879 jobs created across the state because of sportfishing, 11,535 or almost 73 percent, of those are in Southcentral.

This year, however, there's some concern that a sluggish economy could weaken the bite for tourists.

Shanon Hamrick, executive director of the Kenai Peninsula Tourism and Marketing Council, said it isn't all bad news though.

"We do have a mixed bag," she said. "The good news is that requests for information have increased 3 percent directly due to exposure from the presidential race," she said.

Additionally, she said sinking gas prices are easing the concerns of the independent traveler.

Independent travelers account for the large majority of the tourists who visit the central peninsula each year.

International travelers offer a promising market, as well.

"Alaska is on sale," said Michelle Glaves, executive director of the Soldotna Chamber of Commerce.

Hamrick said she's optimistic there may even be an increase in visits from international travels this year.

"Most Europeans consider their annual vacation a right, so they'll give up their perks for their vacation," she said.

Advertising to the international traveler, or even to a stingy domestic traveler, may be a bit more of a challenge.

"If I could talk to every single business on what to do, I'd say it's very important to aggressively market themselves" Hamrick said. "Those that have relied on overflow business in the past are going to be the hardest hit."

Some charter business already may be reeling from last year.

"Anecdotally what we heard was that bookings from last year were pretty much flat," she said.

She expected to see those impacts take effect in Seward this summer.

"In Seward we're definitely going to see the charter fleet dropping out because they've had such a bad year between the weather and the tourist season," she said.

Hamrick said it could be hard to judge how the season will turn out until much later in the year than usual.

"We might not know until April or May. We may not even know what's happening until July hits, that's how leery people are being of making those bookings," she said.

Dante Petri can be reached at dante.petri@peninsulaclarion.com.