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Estimating Michigan Tourism Impacts at the County/CVB Level
By Daniel J. Stynes, Professor, Department of Park, Recreation & Tourism Resources, Michigan State University
 While the Travel Industry Association of America (TIA) and others produce statewide estimates of travel activity and economic impacts, reliable estimates for local areas have been difficult to find. Samples from national and state travel surveys are generally too small to characterize tourist activity in specific destinations. Local studies are often inconsistent, incomplete and often unreliable. While quite a bit of potentially useful economic and tourism data exists at the local level, to date few areas have been able to pull the data together to provide an accurate and complete picture of tourism in their region.
In cooperation with Travel Michigan, Michigan State University is helping local tourism organizations to estimate travel activity, spending and economic impacts. Reasonably reliable estimates of tourist spending may now be made down to the county level using mostly existing data and models developed at MSU. CVB’s must provide estimates of lodging room taxes/assessments for their area for the past three years. Additional local information such as the number of hotel rooms, occupancy rates and average room rates can be used to fine tune and validate the estimates.
The methods and procedures use both tourism satellite accounts estimated from government reports of sales, income and employment in tourism-related sectors as well as measures of tourist volume and spending derived from room taxes, visitor surveys and other sources. Tourist spending is estimated for distinct market segments (day trips, motel, camp, seasonal home, visiting friends & relatives—VFR) and within specific economic sectors (hotels, restaurants, amusements, retail trade). Direct and secondary effects may be estimated using the most up-to-date regional economic data and models.
The procedures were originally developed and tested for the Greater Lansing Convention and Visitor Bureau through the cooperation and support of Tom Galyon. Since then, we have made estimates of tourism impacts for the Lansing CVB, as well as Marquette, Kent, Kalamazoo, Washtenaw, Delta, Shiawassee, and Saginaw counties. We would like to compete studies for all 83 Michigan counties this year. The county estimates must add up to the state totals. Once a complete set of estimates are made for the year 2000, MSU would like to put a program in place to update these each year. Travel Michigan is underwriting this program initially, so there is no cost to CVB’s.
Go to www.msu.edu/course/prr/840/econimpact/MIindex.htm to read more or to download the reports for Lansing and Marquette. Or send a note to Daniel Stynes at stynes@msu.edu for more information.
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