Coulee Dam, WA - A new National Park Service (NPS) study shows that 1.2 million park visitors spent an estimated $50 Million in local gateway regions while visiting Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area. These expenditures supported a total of 697 jobs, $19.3 Million in labor income, $34.9 Million in value added, and $59.1 Million in economic output in local gateway economies surrounding Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area.
The peer-reviewed visitor spending analysis was conducted by economists Catherine Cullinane Thomas of the U.S. Geological Survey and Lynne Koontz of the National Park Service. The report shows $16.9 billion of direct spending by 307.2 million park visitors in communities within 60 miles of a national park. This spending supported 295,000 jobs nationally; 252,000 of those jobs are found in gateway communities. The cumulative benefit to the U.S. economy was $32 billion.
According to the 2015 report, most park visitor spending was for lodging (31.1 percent) followed by food and beverages (20.2 percent), gas and oil (11.8 percent), admissions and fees (10.2 percent) and souvenirs and other expenses (9.8 percent).
Report authors this year produced an interactive tool. Users can explore current year visitor spending, jobs, labor income, value added, and output effects by sector for national, state, and local economies. Users can also view year-by-year trend data. The interactive tool and report are available at the NPS Social Science Program webpage: go.nps.gov/vse.
Source: U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service
