Visitation was up 8 percent last year compared with the previous year at Mesa Verde National Park.
The park’s 547,325 visitors spent an estimated $55.4 million in surrounding communities, including Cortez and Durango, the park said Friday in a news release. A peer-review analysis determined that spending supported 814 local jobs and had a cumulative benefit to the local economy of $66.8 million.
“Mesa Verde welcomes visitors from across the country and around the world,” said park superintendent Cliff Spencer. “National park tourism is a significant driver in the national economy, returning $10 for every $1 invested in the National Park Service, and it’s a big factor in our local economy.”
Nationwide, 307.2 million people visited national parks in 2015 and spent an estimated $16.9 billion in communities within 60 miles of the parks. The cumulative benefit to the U.S. economy was $32 billion, the report said.
Most of that spending went to lodging (31.1 percent) followed by food and beverages (20.2 percent), gas and oil (11.8 percent), admissions and fees (10.2 percent) and souvenirs and other expenses (9.8 percent).
Report authors produced an interactive tool this year that allows Internet users to view economic trends at individual parks across the nation.
In the park’s 107-year history, Mesa Verde has had 27 years in which more visitors went to the park, including the record-setting 1988, which recorded 772,183.
Rocky Mountain National Park attracted more than 4.1 million visitors in 2015, setting a record.
The National Park Service said visitors spent a combined $450 million in communities around Park Service land in Colorado. Communities near Rocky Mountain National Park received $268 million of that total.
The Park Service’s “2015 Economics of Visitor Spending Report” says the money helped support 6,937 jobs in Colorado and had a $666.9 million impact on the state economy.
Parks Service Intermountain Region Director Sue Masica says the 12 national park sites in Colorado draw more than 7 million visitors each year.
Rocky Mountain National Park is the third-most visited of the 59 parks in the national park system. The Great Smoky Mountains is the most visited park with 10.7 million visitors in 2015, and the Grand Canyon comes in second with 5.5 million visitors last year.
shane@durangoherald.com. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
