News Release
©Tim Hauf, timhaufphotography.com
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Contact: Yvonne Menard, 805-658-5725
A recently released National Park Service (NPS) report for 2018 shows that 366,000 park visitors spent an estimated $22.9 million while visiting Channel Islands National Park. That spending supported 285 jobs and contributed $32.4 million to our local economy.In the past year, 867,000 visitors to Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area (SMMNRA) spent an estimated $38.5 million in the local area, supporting 476 jobs and providing $52.2 million in economic benefit.
“Channel Islands National Park is not only a remote and unforgettable visitor experience within easy reach of a major metropolitan area,” said Channel Islands National Park Superintendent Ethan McKinley. “Like SMMNRA, it is also an economic driver for our surrounding communities, returning $10 for every $1 invested in the NPS.”
“Last year was tough for our region, with the Woolsey Fire burning 88% of the park,” said Superintendent David Szymanski of SMMNRA. “Despite the hardships in our community, we are all working together to restore this incredibly beautiful and unique place.”
The report shows that, nationwide, 318 million park visitors spent $20.2 billion in communities within 60 miles of a national park. This spending supported 329,000 jobs nationally; 268,000 of those jobs are found in these gateway communities. The cumulative benefit to the U.S. economy was $40.1 billion.
The peer-reviewed visitor spending analysis was conducted by economists Catherine Cullinane Thomas of the U.S. Geological Survey and Lynne Koontz of the NPS. They produced an interactive tool that explores visitor spending, jobs, labor income, value added, and output effects by sector for national, state, and local economies.
The interactive tool and report are available at the NPS Social Science Program webpage: https://www.nps.gov/subjects/socialscience/vse.htm
Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area is the largest urban national park in the country, encompassing more than 150,000 acres of mountains and coastline in Ventura and Los Angeles counties. A unit of the National Park Service, it comprises a seamless network of local, state and federal parks interwoven with private lands and communities. As one of only five Mediterranean ecosystems in the world, SMMNRA preserves the rich biological diversity of more than 450 animal species and 26 distinct plant communities. For more information, visit www.nps.gov/samo.
Channel Islands National Park preserves the five northern Channel Islands and one mile of ocean around each. The islands are San Miguel, Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz, Anacapa, and Santa Barbara. Established by Congress in 1980, the park protects a rich array of natural and cultural resources. Called by scientists the North American Galapagos, the islands are home to plants and animals found nowhere else in the world, including the diminutive island fox, the large Santa Cruz Island scrub jay, and the island poppy. The isolation and protection of the islands, combined with the extremely prolific food sources with the ocean waters, make the park essential in the lives of 99% of the sea birds of California and over 100,000 seals and sea lions. The largest animal ever to live on the earth, the blue whale, is a summer resident in the cold waters of the park.
Last updated: May 24, 2019