A new National Park Service (NPS) report estimates that Acadia National Park’s 3.97 million visits in 2022 provided $479 million in visitor spending to the local economy. That spending supported nearly 6,700 jobs in the local area and had a cumulative benefit of $691 million.
“Since 1916, the National Park Service has been entrusted with the care of our national parks,” said NPS Director Chuck Sams. “With the help of volunteers and partners, we safeguard these special places and share their stories with more than 300 million visitors every year. The impact of tourism to national parks is undeniable: bringing jobs and revenue to communities in every state in the country and making national parks an essential driver to the national economy.”
Acadia’s Kevin Schneider, the park’s superintendent, said “People come to enjoy and learn about the park’s incredible landscape and history dating back to ancestral home of the Wabanaki people.”
The peer-reviewed visitor spending analysis was conducted by NPS economists. The report shows $23.9 billion of direct spending by nearly 312 million park visitors in communities within 60 miles of a national park. This spending supported 378,400 jobs nationally; 314,600 of those jobs are found in these gateway communities. The cumulative benefit to the U.S. economy was $50.3 billion.
The lodging sector had the highest direct effects, with $9 billion in economic output nationally. The restaurants sector had the second greatest effects, with $4.6 billion in economic output nationally.
