Date: February 28, 2012
Contact: Jim Milestone, (530) 242-3460
A new National Park Service (NPS) report shows that Whiskeytown National Recreation Area's more than 788,000 visitors in 2010 spent $32.7 million in the park and in communities near the park. That spending supported 476 jobs in the local area.
The park's beaches and lake remained a prime destination, but visitors from near and far also hiked to the four major waterfalls, mountain biked the forest trails and participated in competitive sporting events including long-distance swimming and the Whiskeytown Relays. Most of the spending/jobs generated by park visitors are related to lodging, food, and beverage service (52 percent) followed by other retail (29 percent), entertainment/amusements (10 percent), gas and local transportation (7 percent) and groceries (2 percent).
"The people and the business owners in communities near national parks have always known their economic value," Park Superintendent Jim Milestone said. "Whiskeytown National Recreation Area is clean, green fuel for the engine that drives our local economy."
The figures are based on $12 billion of direct spending by 281 million visitors in 394 national parks and nearby communities and are included in an annual, peer-reviewed, visitor spending analysis conducted by Dr. Daniel Stynes of Michigan State University for the National Park Service. Across the U.S, local visitor spending added a total of $31 billion to the national economy and supported more than 258,000 jobs, an increase of $689 million and 11,500 jobs over 2009.
To download the report visit https://www.nature.nps.gov/socialscience/products.cfm#MGM and click on Economic Benefits to Local Communities from National Park Visitation and Payroll, 2010. The report includes information for visitor spending at individual parks and by state. For more information on how the NPS is working in California, go to https://www.nps.gov/california.
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