Tourism to Acadia National Park contributed $479 million to local economy in 2022
Report shows visitor spending supports nearly 6,700 jobs in nearby communities
BAR HARBOR—Acadia National Park sent out a news release today, saying that tourism to the national park has contributed $479 million to the local economy in 2022.
The park estimates that there were 3.97 million visits, which saw $479 million in spending as visitors came to the area.
The news comes after one Bar Harbor Town Councilor asked for a discussion on a potential moratorium on building new lodgings, an effort to deal with traffic at the island’s one motor vehicle ingress and egress by Thompson’s Island (a state road), and another asked for a tourism capacity study.
Traffic delays were common this August when vehicles had accidents on the bridge, Thompson Island, or Route 3 in Trenton. The route is used for tourists and commuters.
According to the Bar Harbor Housing Analysis, “a little less than one third of Bar Harbor’s workforce live in Bar Harbor. Most workers commute from Ellsworth, Hancock, or other locations in the surrounding towns.”
Not all those workers, a town survey says, want to live in Bar Harbor. Those who did not want to live here cited perceived better schools and community safety and family obligations. Of those who do want to live in Bar Harbor but don’t currently, housing prices and the type of housing they want being unavailable were the main reasons.
In Maine, the primary economic contributions of tourists are to the hotel and restaurant industries.
The Acadia National Park release reads,
“That (tourism) spending supported nearly 6,700 jobs in the local area and had a cumulative benefit of $691 million.
“Since 1916, the National Park Service has been entrusted with the care of our national parks. With the help of volunteers and partners, we safeguard these special places and share their stories with more than 300 million visitors every year. The impact of tourism to national parks is undeniable: bringing jobs and revenue to communities in every state in the country and making national parks an essential driver to the national economy,” said National Park Service Director Chuck Sams.
“People come to Acadia National Park to enjoy and learn about the park’s incredible landscape and history dating back to ancestral home of the Wabanaki people,” said Superintendent Kevin Schneider. “We recognize that tourism to Acadia is a critical driver to the local economy, bringing nearly 6,700 jobs and $479 million in revenue to communities within 60 miles of the park.”
The peer-reviewed visitor spending analysis was conducted by economists at the National Park Service. The report shows $23.9 billion of direct spending by nearly 312 million park visitors in communities within 60 miles of a national park. This spending supported 378,400 jobs nationally; 314,600 of those jobs are found in these gateway communities. The cumulative benefit to the U.S. economy was $50.3 billion.
As for the economics of visitor spending, the lodging sector had the highest direct effects, with $9 billion in economic output nationally. The restaurants sector was had the second greatest effects, with $4.6 billion in economic output nationally.
Report authors also produce an interactive tool that enables users to explore visitor spending, jobs, labor income, value added, and output effects by sector for national, state and local economies. Users can also view year-by-year trend data. The interactive tool and report are available at the NPS Social Science Program webpage: Visitor Spending Effects - Economic Contributions of National Park Visitor Spending - Social Science (U.S. National Park Service) (nps.gov)
To learn more about national parks in Maine and how the National Park Service works with Maine name communities to help preserve local history, conserve the environment, and provide outdoor recreation, go to www.nps.gov/maine.
LINKS TO LEARN MORE
To view this news release online, visit Acadia News.
For more information on Acadia National Park, please visit nps.gov/acad or call 207-288-3338.
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For an earlier story about housing, click here.