Holiday weekend brings tourist dollars

LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI) - Many people hit the road this Labor Day weekend and some local businesses are reaping the benefits of those on the road.

Jan Gavril is a tasting room hostess in the Wildcat Creek Winery. She said the last week of summer at the winery will prove to be the cherry on top of a busy summer.

"We get so busy at times we have tastings, not just here in the bar, here at the tasting room, but we set up bars outside on the patio. To be truthful, the amount I don't know, into the figures, but I do know that we put extra help on because we are so busy with tastings," said Gavril.

Gavril added, a lot of the summer crowd is just passing through Lafayette.

"We have the people that come in off of 65 between Chicago and Indianapolis or further south. We also get campers from the area. Prophetstown State Park is not too far," said Gavril.

Dris Abraham is the Chief Operating Officer at Historic Prophetstown. He said the beginning of the weekend starts out slow.

"In the afternoon we get real busy, it's awful nice weather and I think people are doing home projects. We still have people from out of town," said Abraham. 

Abraham added, the summer months at Prophetstown were slow because of the heat and humidity. Now with cooler weather tourist are starting to come back.

"We are busy every fall weekend," Abraham said. "I think Purdue sports helps that. It's nicer weather and people are concentrated during the fall because of school. Their vacation time is limited. I think we get very busy all the way to November.