New Michigan casino transforms tourist trade

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The recently opened Four Winds Casino Resort in Michigan?s southwest corner appears to have sparked something of a tourism renaissance in the New Buffalo area.

The area has long done a low-key tourist trade, but the opening of the casino resort last summer has given the region a shot of adrenaline and generated more business not just in gaming, but for the region?s beaches, bed-and-breakfast inns, wineries, art galleries and restaurants. It has led to new businesses opening and established businesses, such as hotels, filling their rooms.

?Our lodging properties have been benefiting because the casino is very short of rooms,? observed one innkeeper.

Business has been so good at the Four Winds itself that the tribe which owns it, the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians, is already talking about an expansion.