knoxville news
knoxville news knoxville daily sun lifestyle business knoxville sports travel knoxville classifieds knoxville jobs knoxville legal notices knoxville yellow pages smoky mountains contact facebook twitter linkedin rss entertainment knoxville advertising
 

Great Smoky Mountains National Park generates more revenue than any other national park

By Knoxville Daily Sun Staff

Great Smoky Mountains National Park is not only America's most visited national park, it also generates more visitor spending than any of the 397 national parks.

A recently-released National Park Service (NPS) study shows that the Park's 9 million visitors in 2010 spent over $818 million in the gateway towns surrounding the Park. In addition, 11,367 local jobs (full and part-time) were supported by Park visitor spending.

The study was conducted by Dr. Daniel Stynes of the Department of Community, Agriculture, Recreation and Resource Studies at Michigan State University. According to Stynes' study the National Park Service received a total of 281 million recreational visits in 2010 and park visitors spent $12.13 billion in local gateway regions.

In the top five NPS parks generating the most revenue for surrounding towns were Great Smoky Mountains National Park with $818 million, Grand Canyon at $415 million, Yosemite with $354 million, Yellowstone at $334 million, and Blue Ridge Parkway with $299 million.

Smokies Superintendent Dale Ditmanson said, "This study clearly demonstrates the economic benefits that communities located near national parks receive by being collocated with these unique national, historic and cultural sites."

The spending estimates at each park were derived from a money generation model that begins with a park's visitation, party size, length of stay, and proportion of local vs. non-local visitors. Those statistics are combined with locally-indexed cost estimates for restaurants, lodging, amusements, locally-purchased fuel and transportation, and retail spending.

Published January 26, 2012

Share |


Subscribe to Knoxville Daily Sun





knoxville daily sun Knoxville Daily Sun
2011 Image Builders
User Agreement | Privacy Policy
knoxville news business knoxville real estate knoxville sports knoxville jobs travel knoxville automotive knoxville lifestyle knoxville entertainment shopping religion volunteer money email alerts knoxville daily sun knoxville weather education opinion tickets yellow pages smoky mountains daily sun facebook twitter rss reed linkedin.com knoxville health home and garden knoxville