Title: Travel and tourism: an overlooked industry in the U.S. and Tenth District.
Abstract: With onset of recession in early 2001, U.S. travel and tourism industry fell into its worst slump since World War II. The September 11 terrorist attacks and subsequent tightening of airport restrictions dealt industry an unprecedented blow. Many travel destinations continued to suffer in 2002 and early 2003 from a declining stock market, sluggish economic recovery, and war in Iraq. Prior to these recent difficulties, however, travel and tourism's role in national economy had been rising steadily for decades.As in nation, travel and tourism industry has become increasingly important in Tenth Federal Reserve District.1 Indeed, by late 1990s, industry contributed more to gross output in district than either agriculture or oil and gas extraction, region's defining industries for much of 20th century. Travel and tourism is especially important in district's Rocky Mountain states, which are home to popular vacation spots like Yellowstone National Park, Santa Fe, and Colorado ski resorts, as well as Denver, a top business travel destination.Policymakers have begun to recognize travel and tourism's economic significance. In early 2003, for example, Colorado's state legislature-despite facing a severe budget crisis-approved $9 million in new tourism-promotion funds to tiy to boost economic activity in state. At about same time, Congress approved $50 million for an international tourism marketing campaign and to create a U.S. Travel and Tourism Promotion Advisory Board. Yet comprehensive analysis of how travel and tourism performs over time and across areas is lacking, making it difficult to know benefits and costs of greater reliance on industry.To provide a better understanding of travel and tourism industry's role in economy, this article compares and contrasts travel activity in nation with that in Tenth District. The article shows that national travel and tourism activity generally grows rapidly during economic expansions but slows during recessions. In district, effect of recessions on industry is much less than in nation, due largely to different types of travelers region attracts. At same time, many travel destinations in district are susceptible to other types of shocks, such as wildfires or inadequate snowfall, which can disrupt local activity.The first section of article defines travel and tourism and explains industry's importance and historical performance at national level. The second section shows reliance of district on travel and tourism and points out overall differences in historical performance from nation. The third section investigates activity in specific types of tourist areas to determine why travel and tourism industry sometimes performs differently in region than in nation. The article concludes with a discussion of implications of findings.I. OVERVIEW OF U.S. TRAVEL AND TOURISMBecause travel and tourism is not generally classified as a separate industry in economic data sources, determining its importance and tracking its performance can be difficult. This section reviews several measures of travel and tourism's national importance and provides a working definition of industry for comparing activity across geographic areas. The section also looks at historical performance of national travel and tourism activity and explains industry's behavior.Measuring travel and tourismMost researchers would likely agree with definition of travel and tourism provided by Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) in its national travel and tourism satellite accounts: the economic activity generated inside United States by Visitors' of all types-for business and pleasure, by and nonresidents alike-and outside United States by U.S. residents (Okubo and Planting).2 Yet measuring travel and tourism activity is not easy, particularly at state and local levels. …
Publication Year: 2003
Publication Date: 2003-06-22
Language: en
Type: article
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 20
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