*Those in the know figure more than 325,000 visitors each year may call Cape Girardeau home for a night in future years.

On special weekends in Cape Girardeau, all 806 motel rooms in the city are filled and people visiting the area look to Jackson, Perryville and Sikeston for lodging.

One of those special weekends is the annual SEmotion Relays, a sporting event that attracts as many as 1,000 athletes to the Abe Stuber Track and Field Complex each April.

Another is Southeast Missouri State University Homecoming weekend, when thousands of fans visit Cape Girardeau for a football game and other homecoming activities.

Other big weekends feature major youth soccer tournaments, large conventions and other special activities prompt the need for early reservations.

About a quarter-million visitors spent the night in Cape Girardeau over the past year, and that figure is expected to swell in the near future.

Those in the know figure more than 325,000 visitors each year may call Cape Girardeau home for a night in future years.

The reason for expected increased demand in lodging is attributed to two factors: Addition of more than 120 motel rooms this year and the prospect of riverboat gambling, which almost certainly will bring more tourists and megabucks to the city.

Cape Girardeau currently has more than 800 motel rooms, ranging from basic lodging in "no-frills" budget motels to apartment-size hotel suites featuring all the amenities -- health clubs, game rooms, gift shops and lounges with live entertainment.

This total doesn't include the 21 rooms at the Jackson Days Inn motel and don't include a number of bed and breakfast operations in Jackson and Cape Girardeau.

"We have 806 rooms listed in the city," said Kim Groves, of the Cape Girardeau Convention and Visitors Bureau. "That does not count the Hampton Inn, which will open later this year, and a motel planned at the Fruitland exit of Interstate 55."

These two motels will add more than 125 rooms to the area. The Hampton Inn, scheduled for a midyear opening, is a three-story, 82-room, hotel block south of the Drury Suites along Interstate 55. The hotel at the Fruitland exchange will consist of about 40 rooms, and is scheduled for a late-September or early-October opening.

Cape Girardeau motel executives place the annual occupancy rate here at 65 to 70 percent, which translates into more than 200,000 filled rooms per year.

"There are times when we are full," said Pete Poe, manager of Drury Inn here.

Poe, and Dan Drury, of Mid-America Hotels Inc. -- Holiday Inn and Victorian Inn -- agree that a number of weekend events throughout the year result in scarcity of rooms in Cape Girardeau.

"One of the those events will be coming up soon," Drury said, referring to Southeast Missouri State University's SEmotion Relays.

Riverfest, the Southeast Missouri District Fair, The annual Sikeston Rodeo (Aug. 11 to 13) and the 5-H Ranch Exotic Animal Auction (April 16 and 17) provide "fill-up" periods, claim the two hotel executives. "Soccer and softball tournaments are also always big weekends," they said.

Conventions provide some full and near-full occupancy weekends during the year.

Drury and Poe both agree that gambling could have some impact on the motel industry in Cape Girardeau.

Riverboat gambling operations at nearby Metropolis, Ill., have made a significant impact in the Metropolis and Paducah, Ky., motel industry, with more than 100,000 people a month visiting the casino.

Revenue from McCracken County's (Paducah) motel-room tax is at its highest level ever, apparently a result of tourists' interest in the Players Riverboat Casino at Metropolis. The casino is only a few miles from Paducah.

No less than four new motels have been built at Metropolis, and a fifth new motel is nearing the completion phase.