National Parks Visitors Spent $1.2B in Alaska in 2022

The lodging sector saw the greatest direct effects of visitor spending, with $9 billion in economic output nationally. The restaurants sector had the second greatest effects, with $4.6 billion in economic output nationally.

Although Glacier Bay had the most visitors of any national park in Alaska, most of those 546,000 tourists were on cruise ships and therefore spent less on lodging or food than the 428,000 who went to Denali. The 2022 total for Glacier Bay is still rebounding from the canceled cruise seasons in 2020 and 2021; economic impact peaked in 2019 at $246 million. Denali is much lower than its peak year, the $632 million from 2017; every year from 2013 to 2019 saw more visitor spending.

Report authors produced an interactive tool on the NPS website that enables users to explore visitor spending, jobs, labor income, value added, and output effects by sector for national, state, and local economies.

Alaska’s 2022 visitor spending of nearly $1.2 billion matches the economic impact in Arizona and Virginia. Tennessee, Utah, and North Carolina had more, with $1.4 billion, $1.7 billion, and $2.5 billion respectively. California saw the greatest impact, with $2.7 billion in spending by national parks visitors in 2022.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park, straddling the border between Tennessee and North Carolina, was the biggest attraction, accounting for $2.1 billion by itself. The nearby Blue Ridge Parkway tallied $1.3 billion. California’s Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which includes Muir Woods, Alcatraz Island, and the Presidio of San Francisco, was the largest draw in that state, generating $1.1 billion in visitor spending.