Parkway visitation, spending grows
Haywood County contains 46 miles of the Blue Ridge Parkway. Garret K. Woodward photo
Visitors to one of the country’s most unique national park units pumped nearly $1.4 billion into local economies in 2023, continuing a growing trend that has powered rural Western North Carolina’s economy over the past decade.
“The 2023 visitor spending report is a reminder of the important relationship between the historic, 469-mile Parkway, the numerous communities the park passes through, and park visitors,” said Parkway Superintendent Tracy Swartout in a press release dated Aug. 27.
The Blue Ridge Parkway is different than most national parks in that it’s not exactly a single place, but rather a scenic road that passes through 29 counties in Virginia and North Carolina, connecting Shenandoah National Park with the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The parkway enters North Carolina near Cumberland Knob in Alleghany County and rambles across ridgelines and steep mountain slopes for more than 250 miles until it reaches its southern terminus at U.S. 441 near Cherokee.
Along the way, it passes through Alleghany, Ashe, Watauga, Avery, Mitchell, Yancey, Buncombe, Henderson, Haywood, Transylvania, Haywood (again), Jackson and Swain counties, where visitors exit to purchase food, fuel, lodging and more.
According to a recent report released by the National Park Service, 16.76 million people visited the parkway in 2023, the first time visitation has topped the 16-million mark since 2017, when NPS counted 16.09 million.
In 2017, visitor spending topped $1 billion for the first time, up from $770 million in 2013 when visitation was just over 12 million. Spending in 2023 surged to $1.39 billion — the most ever – which approaches double the 2013 figure.
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The spending supports an estimated 19,000 jobs in parkway communities all along its path, and in North Carolina contributes to room occupancy and sales tax collections.
In context, those figures constitute a not-so-insignificant chunk of the National Park Service’s visitation and visitor spending. Systemwide, more than 325 million people visited at least one of the 431 national parks in 2023, spending $26.4 billion, which supported 415,000 jobs for workers earning a collective $19.4 billion.
Over the past decade, visitation to the Blue Ridge Parkway has grown by nearly 40%, while spending has grown by nearly 80%. Smoky Mountain News graphic
The majority of that spending, $9.9 billion, went to the lodging sector, while $5.2 billion went to restaurants.
Parkway-specific stats from NPS say visitors spent more than $600 million on lodging in 2023, more than $300 million on restaurants, $161 million on fuel and $130 million on retail goods.
Only California outpaced North Carolina in terms of visitor spending; the Golden State saw $3.2 billion spent there in 2023, compared to $2.6 billion in the Tar Heel State. Utah, Alaska and Virginia close out the top five states for visitor spending, respectively.
The upkeep of America’s national parks is vital to their continuing allure, but it isn’t cheap. Historically, Congress has come up well short in addressing maintenance backlogs, resulting most recently in a new system that charges for parking in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park — a park that’s supposed to be free to visit. Technically it still is, but unless you walk, hike, canoe or parachute into it, you’ll pay the fee or face a fine.
Swartout, however, mentioned what she called “generation-defining infrastructure investments” on the Parkway as a result of the Great American Outdoors Act.
The Great American Outdoors Act was signed into law by then-President Donald Trump in 2020; however, a subsequent and contradictory order from his administration greatly weakened it. President Joe Biden’s administration rescinded the order less than a month into his tenure, reversing restrictions on conservation projects while restoring funding meant to improve access to communities that need it most.
Now, the GAOA fully funds the Land and Water Conservation Fund with $900 million yearly and provides $9.5 billion over five years to address the systemwide maintenance backlog. That won’t make much of a dent in the estimated 2023 backlog of $23 billion — maintenance issues are continuously emerging — but the funding will have a local impact, especially on the Parkway.
On Aug. 26, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland and Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks Shannon Estenoz visited restoration projects on the Parkway, including Doughton Park in Wilkes County and Laurel Fork Bridge in Alleghany County.
“To address long-overdue maintenance and infrastructure needs, the Blue Ridge Parkway has received $253 million total from GAOA’s Legacy Restoration Fund (LRF), helping improve visitor experience and public safety,” Haaland’s office said in an Aug. 27 press release.
Another $41 million is on the way for Parkway deferred maintenance and repair. Paved roads take up the bulk of the funding, along a stretch through Alleghany, Ashe, Avery, Burke, Caldwell, Watauga and Wilkes Counties.
Learn more about the National Park system’s contributions to local economies, including in North Carolina, but visiting NPS’ new data visualization tool at nps.gov/subjects/socialscience/vse.htm.
