Crowds this weekend could rival some of those expected for this summer's peak times and eclipse the recent Memorial Day weekend, which once was considered the kickoff to the summer tourism season.

A first-time regional marketing campaign by the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce, the 53rd annual Sun Fun festival and a strengthening economy are among the reasons the crowd is expected to be large.

Significant growth has been forecast to occur during the Grand Strand's peak tourism season this year after a few successive flat and down years. Tourism officials said such strong numbers on what usually has been a slow weekend points to those projections becoming reality.

"Having this strong weekend is real important for us to kick off the summer season, kind of the catapult for the industry for the rest of the year," said Stephen Greene, communications vice president for the chamber.

Occupancy rates in area hotels and condominium complexes could hit 92 percent this weekend, a level usually seen during the height of the tourism season, according to preliminary calculations from the Clay Brittain Jr. Center for Resort Tourism at Coastal Carolina University.

The center weekly surveys 16 hotels, 12 condo complexes and their 8,532 lodging units. That represents only a fraction of the 72,000 hotel rooms along the Grand Strand. But the survey, begun last year, is the latest attempt by area officials to track the area's main economic driver, the $5 billion tourism industry.

"To already begin in the 90s in our kickoff weekend is really exciting," Greene said.

Occupancy rates have already reached 85 percent this week - compared with the 66 percent during the weekend of last year's Sun Fun festival.

Greene said crowds at Sun Fun events Thursday night near The Myrtle Beach Pavilion Amusement Park in downtown Myrtle Beach were among the largest seen in years.

"The entire boardwalk area was filled with people," he said.

Some hoteliers and restaurant owners said this weekend is busier than last weekend. Myrtle Beach Police Capt. Joe Vella said Friday's traffic was not as heavy as the traffic going into Memorial Day weekend, though.

Memorial Day weekend filled about 86 percent of the rooms tracked, said Gary Loftus, director of Coastal Federal Center for Economic and Community Development.

At the Crown Reef on the southern tip of Ocean Boulevard, occupancy is at 98 percent, up about 25 percent from the same time last year.

"I actually have occupancy in the 90s all week," said general manager Donna Ruedinger. "Last weekend, my highest occupancy was Saturday night, and that was 80 percent."

Jay Smith, owner of Days Inn on the Ocean, said his hotel was booked last weekend and is full again this weekend.

"Typically, the week after Memorial Day and the week after Labor Day were our slowest two weeks of the year," Smith said.

Rosa Green, manager of Fuddruckers restaurant at 2101 N. Kings Highway, said her business was up Friday about 3 or 4 percent from last weekend.

"This Friday's better," Green said. "The weather's not good. When the weather gets bad, restaurants get packed."

Among the reasons for the large crowd:

The Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce kicked off its "early schools out" campaign, aimed at areas in North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia where the school year ends in mid-May. About 22 percent of the Grand Strand's annual 12.7 million visitors hail from North Carolina, ranking it the top place of origin for area tourists. South Carolina and Georgia are in the top 10.

Myrtle Beach's oldest festival, Sun Fun, is kicking into high gear this weekend, though chamber officials aren't tracking the crowd.

The national economy has added about 1 million jobs in the past three months alone. And a jobs forecast for North Carolina was revised upward this week - even for the manufacturing industry - because of a strong jobs report released last week. The heavy loss of manufacturing jobs in North Carolina contributed to the recent flat tourism seasons here because workers who had been visiting annually were out of work.