Report: Visitors spent $93M along Natchez Trace

TUPELO — A new National Park Service (NPS) report for 2011 shows that 5.7 million recreational visitors to the Natchez Trace Parkway spent $93 million in the communities surrounding the Park.

This spending supported over 1,200 jobs in the local area.

The statistical information for the Parkway is part of a peer-reviewed spending analysis of national park visitors across the country conducted by Michigan State University for the National Park Service. For 2011, the report shows $13 billion of direct spending by 279 million park visitors in communities within 60 miles of a national park. That visitor spending had a $30 billion impact on the entire U.S. economy and supported 252,000 jobs nationwide.

Most visitor spending supports jobs in lodging, food, and beverage service (63 percent) followed by recreation and entertainment (17 percent), other retail (11 percent), transportation and fuel (7 percent) and wholesale and manufacturing (2 percent.)