Variations in multipliers and related economic ratios for recreation and tourism impact analysis

Economic impact analysis estimates the changes in economic activity within a region resulting from some action. Managers and decision-makers can justify tourism's economic significance by tracing the effects of tourist spending on sales, income and jobs in a region. Economic multipliers can be used to capture the secondary effects of tourist spending on a region's economy.;Despite the growing use of economic multipliers in recreation and tourism impact studies, limited guidance is available for choosing multipliers suitable for a given application. This study describes regional variations in economic multipliers for tourism-related sectors, identifies key factors associated with these variations, and evaluates procedures for predicting tourism multipliers for a given region. One hundred and fourteen regions varying in size and economic development were selected. Input-output models were estimated for each region using the IMPLAN system and multipliers for tourism sectors were extracted for analysis.;Multipliers were compared across sectors and regions. The Coefficients of Variation for most multipliers were between 5 and 20 percent across the 114 regions. All tourism multipliers are positively correlated with the natural log of population except for job multipliers, which are negatively correlated. The natural log of population was identified as the best predictor of tourism multipliers, explaining 50 to 80 percent of the variation. Regions were formed into four groups with distinct multipliers. A multiplier lookup table was developed with guidance for choosing sector-specific multipliers for a given type of region. The regression models and lookup procedures were evaluated and compared. Errors from using generic multipliers are generally within 2 to 9 percent, similar to the errors from using regression models.;The results of the study will be used to refine procedures for estimating the economic impacts of recreation and tourism, including the National Park Service's Money Generation Model.