Towns, counties in rural West reinventing themselves as recreational tourism wonderlands

The economy of the rural West once relied on mining, timber, drilling, and ranching, but in recent years has become prosperous for recreational tourism. "A study commissioned by the Outdoor Industry Association estimated that the recreation economy drives $646 billion in consumer spending and creates 6.1 million jobs directly," Ryan Cooper reports for The Washington Monthly. "A 2011 National Park Service study concluded that spending by park visitors supported 251,600 jobs, $30.1 billion in sales, $9.34 billion in labor income, and $16.5 billion in value added. From another angle, a Headwaters [Economics] study found that western non-metro counties have a per-capita income that is $436 greater for every 10,000 acres of protected public lands within their boundaries." (Moab-utah.com photo)

Visits to national parks and national forests are skyrocketing, with 283 million visitors to national parks in 2012 and 160 million to national forests, Cooper writes. "There are no system-wide visitor statistics for Bureau of Land Management land—indeed, it is probably not possible to rigorously survey their nearly 250 million acres—but the number of annual visitors is undoubtedly quite large as well. And that number of visitors is bound to bring in a fair amount of cash."

Some towns moved to tourism out of necessity, others had their hands forced. Moab, Utah, was a mining town that went bust, and local officials restructured their economy around tourism, taking advantage of their many outdoor recreational opportunities to attract visitors, Cooper writes. Escalante, Utah turned to its recreational wonders after then-President Bill Clinton in 1996 declared the coal-heavy Kaipairowitz Plateau and the surrounding region, a national monument. While the move was initially despised, opinions have changed, perhaps because from 1996 to 2008 the "population increased by 8.3 percent, jobs by 37.6 percent, real personal income by 40.3 percent, and real per capita income by 29.6 percent."

With Western towns few and far between, there is plenty of opportunity for other areas to reap the benefits of recreational tourism. "Americans have long loved their national parks. But because we aren’t creating many new ones, and we are creating more Americans, the crowds at the most famous parks, like Yellowstone and Grand Canyon, get bigger every year," Cooper writes. "And as developing countries in Asia and Latin America grow richer, their expanding middle classes will increasingly have the means to satisfy the abiding human desire to travel and see great natural beauty—and nowhere is more beautiful than the American West. In the future, there will be more people eager not only to visit the West for its natural beauty but to live there as well, if the swelling populations of places like Denver, Boise, Albuquerque, and Salt Lake City are any guide." (Read more)