JTHG National Heritage Area Delivers Economic Good News to Local Communities

For Immediate Release  
February 2, 2009
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Waterford, Virginia — In the midst of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, there is good news for communities, businesses and local jurisdictions throughout the Journey Through Hallowed Ground National Heritage Area. Attracting 7 million visitors in 2007, the 10 national parks within the National Heritage Area served as a sturdy tax base, job provider, and income generator for their communities a national study shows.

According to an independent report by Michigan State University, examining the economic impact on communities by visitors to national parks across the nation, the 10 national parks within the Journey Through Hallowed Ground National Heritage Area generated more than $247 million from visitors to the 175-mile region during 2007. The parks also accounted for more than 5,100 jobs, delivering more than $92 million in wage and salary income for the area.

“There’s more than one reason to treasure these culturally rich and historically invaluable national parks,” said Cate Magennis Wyatt, president of the Journey Through Hallowed Ground Partnership. “In a time when jobs are disappearing, businesses are closing, and the tax base is shrinking, we have yet another reason to prize these special parks.

“Not only do they make huge contributions during difficult times to the bottom lines of towns and Main Streets in the region, they also provide main-stream Americans and global tourists alike an economical place to vacation and discover the region known as Where America Happened.”

On a national level, cumulative budgets for national parks across the nation came to $2.65 billion in 2007 with visitors that same year spending $11.79 billion, mostly in travel, food, lodging and souvenirs in national parks and nearby communities.

“Every tax dollar spent on national parks resulted in $4 in visitor spending in communities within 50 miles of a national park site,” said National Parks Service Director Mary A Bomar.

Magennis-Wyatt, a former Secretary of Commerce and Trade for the Commonwealth of Virginia, explained, “Given this strong return on investment and the Civil War Sesquicentennial literally at our doorstep, it’s easy to see why investing in the future of these sites – helping make visitors’ experiences even more memorable and special – makes economic sense.”

With an end goal of increased economic development, the JTHG Partnership was recently awarded a matching grant from Preserve America, a White House initiative, to develop training programs for 4,000 JTHG Partner staff to enrich visitors’ experiences within the 175-mile national heritage area during the Civil War commemoration. Recognizing the connection between an enhanced visitor experience and increased tourism dollars, the grant was matched by the Virginia Tourism Corporation, County of Loudoun, Gettysburg Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Tourism Council of Frederick County.

According to Bomar, 275.6 million people visited national parks in 2007. “Most of them needed a place to stay overnight. They all needed meals each day and most of them bought something to take home and remind them of their experience. When you add that up you get a sense of the economic impact national parks have across the country – and it’s significant,” she said.

Michigan State University economist Daniel Stynes, who worked on the study, said it’s too early to tell what visitor spending will look like for the recently-completed 2008 travel and vacation season. However, Bomar said preliminary 2008 visitation numbers make her optimistic that visitor spending for 2008 will be equal to or slightly higher than 2007. In spite of $4 per gallon prices for gasoline during the peak summer travel period, national park visitation was only off by about one-half of one percent for the first 11 months of 2008 compared to the same period in 2007.

According to the Virginia Tourism Corporation, a subdivision of the Commonwealth of Virginia, tourism and travel is one of the world’s largest industries, growing at an average annual rate of 4.5 percent worldwide. It serves as an economic driver in the Commonwealth and plays an integral role in Virginia’s economy. Tourism and travel generates approximately $18.7 billion annually by U.S. resident travelers in Virginia alone. It accounts for 210,000 jobs, $4.32 billion in salaries and payroll, and generated $1.2 billion in state and local taxes in Virginia in 2007. Local taxes attributed to tourism in 2007 increased 5.3 percent while state taxes from the industry were up 3.5 percent, and federal taxes generated f by traveler spending in the Commonwealth increased 2.3 percent.

The JTHG is a non-profit, four-state, public-private partnership that brings businesses, developers, preservationists, heritage sites, farmers, students, teachers, concerned citizens and elected officials to the table to celebrate America’s heritage in the most historic corridor in our Nation while simultaneously fostering opportunities for economic growth and educating the leaders of tomorrow.