Park Visitors Drive Gateway Economies

With more than 16.7 million visits in 2023, Blue Ridge Parkway led nearly 400 National Park Service sites in recreational visits.

Photo courtesy of NPS

If outdoor recreation opportunities are on your company’s or family’s location matrix, new data released by the National Park Service this week is worth visiting.

Nearly 400 of the Department of the Interior’s 429 National Park Service areas covering more than 85 million acres were worth visiting in 2023, says the new report. A total of 325.5 million visitors — the highest number since 2019 — spent $26.4 billion in communities near national parks, often referred to as gateway economies. This spending supported 415,400 jobs, provided $19.4 billion in labor income and extrapolated to $55.6 in economic output to the U.S. economy, the report stated.

“I’m so proud that our parks and the stories we tell make a lasting impact on more than 300 million visitors a year. And I’m just as proud to see those visitors making positive impacts of their own, by supporting local economies and jobs in every state in the country.”

— National Park Service Director Chuck Sams

As one might expect, the economic output from lodging and restaurants was substantial, combining to account for 57% of total visitor spending), $15.1 billion (27%) of that total economic output and 157,800 (38%) of those total jobs.

The National Park Service (NPS) released data sets for 397 parks, sites, historic sites, recreation areas, seashores, memorials and other properties in its purview. Here’s how things break out by type of site:

The District of Columbia (with more than 41 million), California and Virginia led in visitors. California, North Carolina and Utah led in total visitor spending. Documenting sites in all 50 states and four U.S. territories, the analysis incorporates five parks that began reporting official visitor statistics in 2023: First State National Historical Park in Delaware and Pennsylvania (the first NPS site in Delaware), Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park in Maryland, Mill Springs Battlefield National Monument in Kentucky, Pullman National Historical Park in Illinois and Tule Lake National Monument in California.

While the report lists top states in those categories and a number of others, it does not rank the 397 places for which it also provides data. So we will. Without further ado, below are the top 20 NPS sites by number of recreational visits. NOTE: Gateway National Recreation Area, not to be confused with Gateway National Arch in St. Louis, spans 27,000 acres from Sandy Hook in New Jersey to Breezy Point in New York City. (Visit the full 68-page report for methodological explanations and caveats.)

Here are the top 20 by visitor spending, led by nearly $2.2 billion spent in and around Great Smoky Mountains National Park (thanks, Dolly!):

Here are the top 20 by jobs:

And here are the top 20 by economic output:

Viewed by a map with economic impact circles corresponding to size of impact, it’s evident by scale of impact and type of site where NPS sites contribute to everyday quality of life for regional residents over and above serving as bucket list destinations.

Visitors to the National Park Service website can travel through scenic vistas of visitor statistics data by year, designation and area, including stats for particular parks. Via another online interactive tool, you can view year-by-year trend data and explore current year visitor spending, jobs, labor income, value added, and economic output effects by sector for national, state, and local economies. The interactive tool is available at https://www.nps.gov/subjects/socialscience/vse.htm. — Adam Bruns

Zion National Park is among NPS leaders in job creation, economic output and jaw-dropping phenomena like this view of the Milky Way.

Photo courtesy of NPS