OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK – A new National Park Service report shows that 2.4 million visitors to Olympic National Park in 2022 spent $228 million in Port Angeles and other communities near the park. That spending supported 2,450 jobs in the local area and had a cumulative benefit to the local economy of $320 million.

The peer-reviewed visitor spending analysis was conducted by economists at the National Park Service. The report shows 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.

Report authors also produce an interactive tool that enables users to explore visitor spending, jobs, labor income, value added, and output effects by sector for national, state and local economies. Users can also view year-by-year trend data. The interactive tool and report are available at the NPS Social Science Program webpage (here).

What it tells us about Washington state is, in 2022, 8 million park visitors spent an estimated $525 million in local gateway regions such as ours, supporting 5,700 jobs, and sparking $722 million in economic output in the Washington economy.