Here's an alternative to crowded beaches: the sweltering desert.

Phoenix tourism officials are inviting the traveling public to visit their 110-degree environs this summer. It's a ploy to smooth out their market's seasonality, and to the surprise of many observers, it's working. Occupancy at Phoenix-area resorts stands well above 70% this summer, up from barely 50% three years ago.

More surprising yet is how Phoenix did it: partly by raising prices. "For years, we tried building demand by giving rooms away, and that only made people think that it must be awful here in summer," says David Radcliffe, chief executive of the Phoenix and Valley of the Sun Convention and Visitors Bureau. "So we made the decision to raise rates and stop apologizing for the heat."

The Phoenix campaign illustrates a primary growth target of the tourism industry these days: the off-season. While Sun Belt cities promote their sultry summers, Alaska is aggressively touting winter. Montana is advertising autumn, its slowest season, while New York City is focusing on its weakest months: January and February. "Diminishing seasonality is the goal of the industry now, and there's been a high degree of success," says Randy Smith of Smith Travel Research in Gallatin, Tenn.

The push is partly attributable to high-season strength. "If you're operating at capacity in season, you're not going to get a lot of improvement there," notes Richard Warnick, a Phoenix travel consultant. In Alaska, an Anchorage Convention and Visitors Bureau spokesman says the bureau is touting winter because "we're full up in summer."

The memory of painful gluts is making the off-season a more attractive avenue for growth than increased high-season capacity. In Alaska, "a lot of our businesses would like to expand, but until there's more demand on a year-round basis they don't think it's a good idea," says David Karp, executive director of the Alaska Tourism Marketing Council.

There are risks. The off-season could steal business from the high season, when rates are higher and profits fatter. That danger increases when, as in Alaska, tourism officials aggressively tout the off-season to high-season visitors. "Your off-season business needs to be new business or else you're hurting yourself," says Mr. Smith, the travel researcher.

But attracting first-time visitors when a place is at less than its best is also a risk: They might hate it. Alaska is mostly dark in winter. Phoenix in summer is not only sizzling but unattractive compared with winter, when plant life blooms. Tourist facilities are less impressive, the off-season being when repairs are performed; a recent visit to Phoenix found the fitness center closed at the Hilton Pointe at Squaw Peak, the lap pool closed at the Arizona Biltmore and the computer system down at the Scottsdale Princess, all for upgrades, repairs or construction.

But resort owners say off-season revenue is vital. "Your property-tax bill and mortgage statements come year round," notes Matt Crow, an owner of the Arizona Biltmore.

The trick, it seems, is to accentuate the positive. Reclining outside the Hyatt Gainey Scottsdale resort one recent morning, marketing director Mark Stiebeling dabs a handkerchief at his sweat-soaked face and spouts the official desert marketing line: "It's a dry heat here, which feels cooler."

Alaska officials even use a euphemism for winter: "the secret season." The dryness of their air makes for a "warm cold," they say. Any mention of scarce winter light starts them talking about the state's beauty. They also talk up such advantages as absence of lines, light traffic and shortcuts that don't exist in summer. "Instead of driving around lakes you can drive across them," Mr. Karp notes.

The upbeat approach is working. While summer continues to account for 85% of visitors, winter visitors are more and more common, as convention figures from Anchorage show: From 1990 to 1994, revenue from conventions during the fall, winter and spring nearly doubled to $35.4 million from $18.6 million.

The biggest turnaround has occurred in Phoenix, as Ralph Lauren Fragrances can attest. When trying last winter to book a small convention in Phoenix this summer, "we had a heck of a time getting into any hotel," says Jack Wiswall, a senior vice president. To boot, he says, "the rates weren't as low as you'd expect."

Only a few years ago, Arizona resorts routinely cut their $300-a-night winter rates to as low as $22 and still managed to fill barely half their rooms in summer. In those days, they advertised primarily to locals seeking one- or two-night getaways.

The turning point came when they realized that their dismal view of summer came largely from themselves and other Arizonans, who had to endure long months of it. By contrast, outsiders popping in for short visits often found the intense heat as novel as the one-armed cacti dotting nearby brown hills. For respite, such visitors could repair to opulent -- and well-air-conditioned -- resorts, for a pittance.

In a combined effort, executives of resorts and of local chambers of commerce decided about three years ago to stop apologizing for the heat, raise room rates and shift substantial advertising dollars from winter to summer. Almost immediately, occupancy rates started climbing. An overseas marketing effort proved that international visitors, especially from such cool climes as Britain, love the desert heat; they now account for nearly 5% of total business, up from barely 1% five years ago.

Hordes are also coming from elsewhere in the states. Three summers in a row, Jackie Bruggeman has come from Minnesota with her husband and two children to the Pointe at Squaw Peak, where the summer rates seem like a bargain even after a recent 30% rise. "It's hard to believe you can stay in a place this luxurious for this price [$99 a night]," she says.

Another selling point -- no clouds in sight -- is striking a chord with vacationers who want guaranteed sunshine, even if the heat dictates a 7 a.m. tee time. Ford Models Inc. is considering holding its Super Model of the World event in Phoenix next month because "there will be lots of outside photographs, and we don't want bad weather ruining it," says a spokeswoman.

Traditionally the playground of golfers and equestrians, Arizona is suddenly hyping a feature unnatural to the desert: water. New resorts boast acres of pools, while older ones such as the Biltmore have spent millions adding pools and water slides.

As for conventioneers, they say the punishing heat can be an asset. During LPL Financial Services Corp.'s recent convention at the Scottsdale Princess, "nobody was playing golf during meetings," says spokesman Mark Lopez. "It was too hot."

Credit: Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal