Tourism at national parks in the Greater Washington area generates almost $1.6 billion in economic benefit

Date: April 21, 2016
Contact: Jenny Anzelmo-Sarles, 202-619-7177

WASHINGTON –A new National Park Service (NPS) report for 2015 shows that the spending by more than 56 million visitors to national parks in the National Capital Region resulted in 16,917jobs and contributed almost $1.6 billion to the region's economy.

"The experiences offered at the national parks of the Greater Washington area draw visitors from across the country and around the world," Regional Director Bob Vogel said. "From locals enjoying their daily jog at Prince William Forest Park or a concert at Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts, to tourists seeing the Lincoln Memorial for the first time, visitors to our region's parks have a big impact on our economy, returning $10 for every $1 invested in the National Park Service."

The peer-reviewed visitor spending analysis was conducted by economists Catherine Cullinane Thomas of the U.S. Geological Survey and Lynne Koontz of the National Park Service. The report shows $16.9 billion of direct spending by 307.2 million park visitors in communities within 60 miles of a national park. This spending supported 295,000 jobs nationally;252,000 of those jobs are found in these gateway communities. The cumulative benefit to the U.S. economy was $32 billion.

According to the 2015 report, most park visitor spending was for lodging (31.1 percent) followed by food and beverage (20.2 percent), gas and oil (11.8percent), admissions and fees (10.2percent) and souvenirs (9.8percent).

Report authors this year produced an interactive tool. Users can explore current year 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: go.nps.gov/vse.

The report includes information for visitor spending at individual parks and by state.

National Parks in the National Capital Region	Visitation (2015)	Economic Benefit ($ thousands)	Jobs Supported
Antietam National Battlefield	347,181	$29,466.0	298
Arlington House, the Robert E. Lee Memorial	532,051	$41,451.1	431
Catoctin Mountain Park	229,301	$18,389.8	189
Chesapeake &Ohio Canal National Historical Park	4,798,312	$126,688.6	1329
Clara Barton National Historic Site	2,823	$220.6	2
Ford's Theatre National Historic Site	681,537	$17,892.4	182
Fort Washington Park	337,432	$26, 088.1	269
Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial	3,290,080	$86,374.4	878
Frederick Douglass National Historic Site	53,874	$1,412.0	13
George Washington Memorial Parkway	7,286,463	$66,515.2	847
Greenbelt Park	135,260	$10,954.0	111
Harpers Ferry National Historical Park	282,893	$19,876.0	212
Korean War Veterans Memorial	4,077,835	$107,055.3	1,088
Lincoln Memorial	7,941,771	$208,495.2	2,120
Lyndon Baines Johnson Memorial Grove on the Potomac	232,883	$18,143.5	188
Manassas National Battlefield Park	502,045	$38,948.9	405
Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial	3,530,401	$92,683.6	941
Mary McLeod Bethune Council House National Historic Site	8,249	$216.6	3
Monocacy National Battlefield	64,596	$7,395.1	76
National Capital Parks - East	1,220,404	$32,444.5	332
National Mall &Memorial Parks (not including monuments and memorials listed separately)	1,833,085	$48,171.0	491
Piscataway Park	148,730	$11,500.5	120
President's Park (White House)	903,161	$23,710.7	242
Prince William Forest Park	312,108	$23,149.1	233
Rock Creek Park	2,443,771	$64,341.6	656
Theodore Roosevelt Island	159,739	$12,445.0	131
Thomas Jefferson Memorial	3,102,441	$81,448.3	828
Vietnam Veterans Memorial	5,597,077	$146,940.0	1,494
Washington Monument	493,550	$12,957.2	131
Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts	407,351	$31,860.8	332
World War II Memorial	5,068,224	$133,056.0	1,352
TOTAL	56,550,891	$1,590,700.0	16,917