A new National Park Service (NPS) report shows that 17,389,242 national park visitors in New York in 2010 spent $490,911,000 and supported 5,780 jobs in the state.
According to data in this report, Fire Island National Seashore recorded 613,057 visitors in 2010, who spent approximately $35,076,000 in the communities surrounding the park, which supported 443 local jobs. Fire Island National Seashore includes administrative and visitor facilities on Fire Island, at the William Floyd Estate in Mastic Beach, and in the Village of Patchogue, New York.
For 2010 at Sagamore Hill National Historic Site in Oyster Bay, New York, the report states that 55,149 visitors spent $3,566,000 in the communities surrounding the park, which supported 46 jobs in this local area on Long Island, New York.
“The people and the business owners in communities near national parks have always known their economic value,” said park superintendent Thomas Ross of Sagamore Hill National Historic Site.
For Fire Island National Seashore, which includes 17 communities with more than 4,200 summer homes and an entire county park within NPS park boundaries, “these figures generated from NPS visitation statistics are a fraction of Fire Island’s overall benefit to the local economy,” stated Fire Island’s superintendent Chris Soller, “but the value of being part of the National Park Service enhances tourism and helps drive the local economy, while protecting nationally significant historic, cultural and natural resources.”
Most of the spending/jobs 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 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 NPS 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 http://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.
