Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore – good for our economy!

A new National Park Service report shows that the 1,348,304 visitors to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in 2011 spent almost $133 million in communities surrounding the park, supporting an estimated 2,347 jobs in the local area. The information on Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore is part of a peer-reviewed spending analysis of national park visitors across the country conducted by Michigan State University for the National Park Service.

Park Superintendent Dusty Shultz explains: “Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore is a wonderful place to learn about America’s story. We attract visitors from across the U.S. and around the world who come here to experience the park and then spend time and money enjoying the services provided by our neighboring communities.”

Most visitor spending supports jobs in lodging, food, and beverage service (63 percent), followed by recreation and entertainment (17 percent), other retail (11 percent), transportation and fuel (7 percent) and wholesale and manufacturing (2 percent).

Photo credit: “Empire Bluff” Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore by Michigan Nut