Park Service: Visitors spent about $199 million in Glacier Park bedroom communities last year; but it's also an economy of service jobs

Visitors spent about $199 million in gateway communities while visiting Glacier National Park in 2015, according to a new Park Service report. That’s up about $6 million over 2014 and up $26.6 million from 2012.

The report said that one-third of the total spending was on hotels and 10 percent was just on fuel. Restaurants accounted for 18 percent, retail about 10 percent, and transportation costs, aside from gas were another 10 percent.

The Park Service study found that visitors supported 3,500 jobs locally.

All told, the impact of the Park added about $143 million in added value to the economy and amounted to $268.8 million in economic output.

The jobs it creates, however, were largely service sector employment — hotels amounted to 22 percent of the jobs, restaurants 16 percent. A search of hotel jobs on the Flathead County Job Service web site found they paid about $10 an hour. Cook jobs at restaurants ranged from $8.50 an hour at fast food joints, to $15.56 an hour for “head cook” jobs at some restaurants. 

Other jobs were lumped into a category the Park Service termed “secondary effects.”

Secondary effects are the result of local businesses purchasing supplies and labor and employees spending their incomes in the local economy, the report notes.

Nationwide, parks were a $32 billion benefit to the nation’s economy and supported 295,000 jobs.

The annual peer-reviewed economics report, 2015 National Park Visitor spending effects, was prepared by economists Catherine Cullinane Thomas of the U.S. Geological Survey and Lynne Koontz of the National Park Service.

National Park visitation is expected to grow again in 2016, the centennial year for the Service. There are now 411 parks in the national park system, the latest is the Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality National Monument in Washington D.C., established by President Obama on April 12.

To read or download the report, visit http://www.nature.nps.gov/socialscience/vse.cfm. The page includes a clickable, interactive tool that allows instant access to report data and graphics for every state and NPS park site.